Fig. 5

Photomicrograph of H& E stained sections of surgically removed auricular cartilage: A (40 times) and B (100 times) reveal defective area (yellow chevron) with small island of newly formed cartilage (white arrow) of the control group. C (100 times) shows small light purple newly formed cartilage (white arrow) at the defective edges of the deep purple original cartilage (yellow arrow) after treatment with ADSCs. D (100 times), E (400 times) and F (400 times) revealed a large area of mature formed cartilage (yellow chevron) after BMMSCs injection. This cartilage exhibits mature chondrocytes inside their obvious lacunae (red arrow) surrounded by dense ECM (white arrow). Collagenous tissue (yellow star) with differentiated chondrocytes (black chevron) is obtained surrounding the formed cartilage. G (100 times), H (400 times) and I (400 times) show defective area treated with EMSCs that exhibit newly formed cartilage (yellow chevron) with light purple matrix (white arrow) and not evenly distributed cartilage cells (red arrow). Collagenous tissue (yellow star) with differentiated chondrocytes (black chevron) appeared surrounding the formed cartilage. The defective area refers to the site of the surgically created auricular cartilage defect “as shown in Fig. 3 by double arrow line”.