Fig. 1
Vascular cell transduction and multicellular culturing strategy. a A schematic presentation of the different multicellular cultures examined: co-culture of naive or ANGPT1-secreting endothelial cells, with naive or VEGF-secreting SMCs, were cultured to generate 3D vascular networks. Tri-cultures of naive or ANGPT1-secreting endothelial cells, with naive or VEGF-secreting SMC and human myoblasts, were cultured to generate 3D vascular networks within skeletal muscle constructs. b Secreted VEGF concentrations, as quantified by ELISA, 4 days after co- and tri-culture seeding on PLLA/PLGA scaffolds. EC endothelial cells, SMC smooth muscle cells, Myo myoblasts. Data are expressed as box-and-whisker plots, where the central lines denote medians, edges represent upper and lower quartiles and whiskers show minimum and maximum values. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA, followed by Holm–Sidak’s multiple comparison test, n = 4 (##p = 0.0045 versus EC-SMC-Myo tri-culture, ****p < 0.0001 versus EC-SMC co-culture). c Secreted ANGPT1 concentrations, as quantified by ELISA, 4 days after co- and tri-culture seeding on PLLA/PLGA scaffolds. Data are expressed as box-and-whisker plots, where the central lines denote medians, edges represent upper and lower quartiles and whiskers show minimum and maximum values. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA, followed by Holm–Sidak’s multiple comparison test, n = 4 (###p = 0.0009 versus EC-SMC-Myo tri-culture, ***p = 0.0007 versus EC-SMC co-culture, ****p < 0.0001 versus EC-SMC co-culture). d Secreted ANGPT2 concentrations, as quantified by ELISA, 4 days after co- and tri-culture seeding on PLLA/PLGA scaffolds. Data are expressed as box-and-whisker plots, where the central lines denote medians, edges represent upper and lower quartiles and whiskers show minimum and maximum values. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA, followed by Holm–Sidak’s multiple comparison test, n = 6 (#p = 0.0471 versus EC-SMC-Myo tri-culture, *p = 0.0104 versus EC-SMC co-culture, ****p < 0.0001 versus EC-SMC co-culture, ^^p = 0.0033 versus ECANGPT1-SMCVEGF-Myo tri-culture, ^^^^p < 0.0001 versus ECANGPT1-SMCVEGF-Myo tri-culture)
