Fig. 2

MSCs and ECM. Using the in vivo model of chronic asthma and ovalbumin as the antigen, mice were evaluated for the amount of ECM by trichrome staining (bright blue color). Compared to controls (a), the animals that were challenged with ovalbumin had higher levels of trichrome bright blue staining (b). In each study group, an subset of mice were given 10⁶ hMSCs. Treatment with hMSCs cells decreased the lung distribution of trichrome staining (c) consistent with the decrease in ECM. ImagePro quantitative analysis was used to quantify the amount of bright blue ECM defined by the trichrome staining in 198 sectional images of each tissue section in each study of a different hMSC donor. For each experimental series, in which there were controls (sensitized but not challenged), asthma (sensitized and challenged) and treated group (sensitized, challenged and treated with hMSCs) there were at least 10 animals in a group. Each group experimental series used a different hMSC donor. (d) The distribution of ECM was significantly decreased within each experimental series between the OVA and OVA treated with hMSCs(p = 0.04, n = 3 experiments including each group, statistics used regression mutli-variant analsyis)