Fig. 3

The epidermis from early-stage TESSs contains more Ki-67- and p63-positive cells. a, b Representative images of Ki-67 IHC staining of the epidermis formed 4 (a) and 8 (b) weeks after grafting different stages of TESSs. c, d Representative images of IF staining (red) of p63 in the epidermis formed 4 (c) and 8 (d) weeks after grafting different stages of TESSs; DAPI stains the nuclei (blue). e, f Quantification of the percentage of Ki-67-positive cells in the basal cell layer by counting the number of Ki-67-positive cells in a total of 200 basal cells with DAPI staining from a for 4 and b for 8 weeks after transplantation. g, h Quantification of the percentage of p63-positive cells in the epidermis formed by counting the number of p63-positive cells in a total of 200 epidermal cells with DAPI staining from c for 4 and d for 8 weeks after transplantation. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.005 when two groups were compared as indicated; none of the other comparisons was significantly different (3 mice for each group, n = 3); bars = 50 μm