Distinct progenitor populations in skeletal muscle are bone marrow derived and exhibit different cell fates during vascular regeneration
J. Clin. Invest. Susan M. Majka, et al. 111:71 doi:10.1172/JCI16157 [Go to this article.]

Figure 6
Skeletal muscle-derived non-SP cells engraft into vascular smooth muscle. Six- to eight- week-old C57Bl/6 mice were anesthetized with Avertin, and both TA muscles were injected with 25 μl of a 1 mg/ml cardiotoxin. After 8 or 24 hours, the right limb TA muscle was injected with 500,000 LacZ-positive muscle non-SP cells, and the left leg was injected with HBSS alone. After 4 weeks, the TA muscles of each of four experimental animals were harvested and processed for frozen sectioning and immunohistochemical analysis. All sections were immunostained for β-gal, and costained for either ICAM-2 or desmin to detect injury-induced engraftment of LacZ positive non-SP cells into regenerated vascular endothelium and smooth muscle, respectively. β-gal expression in vascular structures colocalized only with desmin: (a, b, and g) bright field, box in a indicates region shown in (b–f); (c) DAPI; (d and h) β-gal immunohistochemistry; (e and i) desmin immunohistochemistry; (f and j) β-gal and desmin fluorescent images were merged to reveal areas of costaining, as evidenced by the yellow staining pattern. Magnification, ×200 (a); ×600 (b, c, d, e, and f); ×1,000 (g, h, i, and j).