Fig. 3
In vitro vessel-like network stability. a Representative confocal images of whole-mount immunofluorescent scaffolds populated with co- or tri-cultures. EC endothelial cells, SMC smooth muscle cells. Endothelial cell -ZsGreen are stained in green, αSMA-positive cells are stained in red and nuclei are stained in blue; scale bar = 100 µm. b Representative confocal images of whole-mount immunofluorescent scaffolds populated with endothelial cellANGPT1 and SMCsVEGF. Endothelial cell-ZsGreen are stained in green, αSMA-positive cells are stained in red and nuclei are stained in blue; scale bar = 10 µm. c Total αSMA expression density. 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 = 5 (*p = 0.0318 for ECANGPT1-SMC versus EC-SMC co-culture, *p = 0.0463 for ECANGPT1-SMCVEGF versus EC-SMC co-culture). d αSMA-wrapped vessels. 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 = 5 (*p = 0.0444 for ECANGPT1-SMC versus EC-SMC co-culture, **p = 0.0020 for ECANGPT1-SMCVEGF versus EC-SMC co-culture, ***p = 0.0003 for EC-SMCVEGF versus EC-SMC co-culture, ***p = 0.0006 for EC-SMC-Myo versus EC-SMCco-culture, ****p < 0.0001 for ECANGPT1-SMCVEGF-Myo versus EC-SMCco-culture)
