Fig. 4

Immunocytochemistry of secondary culture of LG-derived MSCs. Immunocytochemistry was performed on LG-MSCs after 2–3 in vitro passages. Under these experimental conditions, LG-MSCs lost the expression of endothelial markers CD31, CD34 and KDR (a receptor for VEGF), while retaining pericyte and mesenchymal markers NG2, CD105 and SMA. Cells were still positive for TGFβ1 and VEGF. To note, CD146 positive cells (black arrow) were very few, suggesting that this marker in LG was probably mostly expressed by the cells of endothelial origin (Magnification 20x)