Figure 2

Characterization and functional features of human and murine BMVECs. (A) Phase contrast micrographs of confluent monolayers of human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs. BMVECs present the typical “cobblestone appearance”. Scale bar, 100 μm and 200 μm for human BMVECs and murine BMVECs. B) Human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs showed a clear cytoplasmic staining for CD31. Scale bar, 50 μm. C) Human (left image) and murine (right image) cells displayed an intense positive immunofluorescence for vWf. Scale bar, 50 μm. D) Flow cytometric analysis of BMVECs. Human BMVECs resulted positive (gray histograms) for CD31 (left graph), CD105, CD146 (left gaph), UEA-1 staining; murine BMVECs resulted positive for CD31 (right graph), CD34, CD146 (right graph) and Tie-2 staining. White histograms represent the isotype controls of each antibody. E) Capillary tube-like structure produced by human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs, 7 h after plating onto Matrigel. Scale bar, 100 μm. F) LDL-uptake assay on human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs. Scale bar, 50 μm. G) Human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs were labelled for GLUT-1. Scale bar, 50 μm. H) Immunofluorescence for eNOS in human (left image) and murine (right image) BMVECs. Scale bar, 50 μm. All nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). One representative of three independent experiments performed in blind is shown for each figure.