Fig. 4

Hypertrophic and terminal differentiation processes in human bone marrow aspirates co-transduced with rAAV-hTGF-β/rAAV-FLAG-hsox9. Aspirates were treated and maintained in culture as described in Figs. 1, 2 and 3. The samples were processed after 21 days to evaluate (a) matrix mineralization (alizarin red staining) and the production of type-I and -X collagen (immunostaining) (original magnification x20, bar = 100 μm, insets at x40, all representative data) with histomorphometric analyses of the intensities of alizarin red staining (b) and of type-I collagen (c) and type-X collagen immunostaining (d) as described in the Materials and Methods. *,**Statistically significant compared with the control groups (rAAV-lacZ, no vector condition) (*p ≤ 0.050, **p ≤ 0.010)