Fig. 6: The DEndo-UdECM/Tβ4@PLGA hydrogel promotes functional endometrial regeneration and suppresses fibrosis in a murine injury model.

a Schematic of the in vivo study design (Created in BioRender. Zhaowei, Y. (2025) https://BioRender.com/ul4iqzn). b Gross morphology of uteri 14 days post-treatment. c Representative H&E-stained uterine cross-sections. Red asterisks indicate endometrial glands. Blue double-headed arrows illustrate the measurement of endometrial thickness. d, e Quantification of endometrial thickness (d) and the number of endometrial glands per section (e). f, g Assessment of glandular function. f Immunofluorescence staining for the glandular marker FOXA2 (green). g Quantification of FOXA2 mean fluorescence intensity. h, i Evaluation of overall fibrosis. h Masson’s trichrome staining, where collagen is stained blue and muscle/cytoplasm red. i Quantification of the fibrotic area as a percentage of the total tissue area. j–l Analysis of key fibrotic markers. j Co-immunofluorescence staining for α-SMA (green) and COL1 (red). k, l Quantification of the mean fluorescence intensity for α-SMA (k) and COL1 (l). In all fluorescence images (f, j), nuclei are counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars in the representative images (c, f, h, j), 100 µm. In (d, e, g, i, k, l), data are presented as mean ± SD from n = 6 biologically independent animals. Statistical significance was determined by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001. Detailed statistical analyses, including exact P values, test statistics (F values and degrees of freedom), and 95% confidence intervals, are provided in the Source Data file.