Fig. 1

Isolation of nasoseptal cartilage-derived cells. a Gross morphology of nasoseptal cartilage taken from patients undergoing septorhinoplasty. Scale bar, 4 mm. b, c Safranin-O staining of nasoseptal cartilage indicating the fibrous tissue removed (dashed line) prior to enzymatic digestion. Scale bars, 100 μm. d Schematics of the isolation of CDC, DNC and CSPC populations. Briefly, at day 1, the tissue is subjected to enzymatic digestion for 16–18 h. CDCs are seeded in culture grade plastic while the remaining cells are separated based on fibronectin adherence: after 20 min on fibronectin, the non-adherent population (DNCs) is transferred to a separate culture plate. Once confluent all three cell populations were passaged on culture grade plastic under standard culture conditions and the same cell seeding density