Fig. 3: Therapeutic efficacy of intravenous cellular administration combined with intramuscular cellular delivery.

Laser Doppler imaging analysis was performed immediately and every week following femoral artery ligation to evaluate blood perfusion in the ischemic hind limbs (a). After intramuscular transplantation of hiPSC-MSCs, blood perfusion was significantly improved in the MSC-Saline, MSC-MSC/once, MSC-MSC/week and MSC-MSC/3 days groups compared with the ischemia group from day 14 onwards (all p < 0.05). A single and repeated intravenous hiPSC-MSC infusion further improved blood perfusion in the MSC-MSC/once, MSC-MSC/week and MSC-MSC/3 days groups compared with MSC-Saline group (all p < 0.05). Moreover, the blood perfusion was significantly higher in the MSC-MSC/week and MSC-MSC/3 days groups compared with the MSC-MSC/once group (all p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the MSC-MSC/week and MSC-MSC/3 days groups (p > 0.05) (b).