Figure 3

In vitro tubule-like structure formation driven by pre-treated BMMCs. The micrographs are representative of 3 separate experiments. HUVECs alone generated well-defined capillary-like structures on Matrigel (a, ×100. BMMCs pre-treated with the fibronectin medium and seeded on Matrigel formed a similar network either alone (b, ×100) or with HUVECs (c,d). These co-cultures were observed under phase contrast (c) or fluorescence (d) microscopy to evidence CFDA-labelled BMMCs (×200). When BMMCs were pre-treated with the gelatin medium, they produced single agglomerates (e, ×100) or interrupted rings (f, ×100). BMMCs treated with the gelatin medium developed networks when cultured with HUVECs (g, phase contrast; h, fluorescence of FITC-BS-I-labeled BMMCs).