Figure 3.

After generation of mesenchymal microspheres (MMS) by hanging drop cultivation the standardized cellular aggregates are plated on plastic culture dishes (A); at 0 d specific medium is applied to induce differentiation and the MMS grow out. Alcian blue (AB) staining (bottom) of cryosectioned "micromass bodies" (MMB) derived from murine bone marrow (BM; B), perirenal adipose tissue (PAT; C), and mediastinal stromal tissue (MST; D) as well as AB staining of MMS outgrowths (E-G) demonstrates chondrogenic differentiation of the mesenchymal progenitor cells with a maximum at day 25 of differentiation. Bar = 100 μm.