Fig. 4

Effects of GMSC-conditioned medium (CM) on HMEC-1 proliferation and motility. a Schematic representation of the method. Human microvascular endothelial cell (HMEC)-1 cells were grown in 80% HMEC-1 culture medium + 20% CM obtained from control and treated GMSCs, as reported in the Methods, for b 24 h or c 48 h. At the end of the treatments, the cell proliferation was evaluated using the MTS assay. The data are expressed as the percentage versus the untreated cells (CTRL), which was set to 100%, and they are presented as the mean values ± SEM of three independent experiments, each performed in duplicate. d, e HMEC-1 cells were treated as above, and representative images of the scratch wounds at 0 h and 8 h are shown (d). e The average length of the gaps of five scratch wounds was initially measured at 0 h (t₀) and then after 8 h (t₈). The data are presented as the mean values ± SEM of at least two independent experiments performed in triplicate. **P ≤ 0.01, ***P ≤ 0.001 vs. the respective average gaps at t₀. f Percentage of gap closure compared with untreated cells (CTRL). The data are presented as the mean values ± SEM of at least two independent experiments performed in triplicate. The significance of the differences was determined by one-way ANOVA, followed by Bonferroni’s post-hoc test: *P ≤ 0.05 vs. control; ^#P ≤ 0.05 vs. the control CM (CTRL-CM). RBE, Ribes nigrum bud extract; TNF, tumour necrosis factor