Fig. 3

Immunoflourescent staining reveals the presence of CSPG breakdown products and ENSCs 16 weeks post-transplantation. Longitudinal cryosections of the spinal cords harvested at 16 weeks post-injury were analysed for markers indicative of successful treatment. a–d Representative images of the spinal cords in the untreated (a), ChABC-treated (b), ENSC-treated (c) and ENSC+ChABC-treated (d) groups. Asterisks indicate lesion cavity. Chondroitin-4-sulfate disaccharides (C4S), a breakdown product of CSPGs, were detected by immunoflourescent staining following treatment with ChABC (b, d). In rats receiving ENSC transplantation, ENSCs could be seen within the spinal cord injury zone (c, d). ENSCs extended substantial processes from the transplantation site (e, arrowheads), often for several millimetres (f, arrows indicate maximum detected length of a single GFP+ fibre). The boxed area in f is shown at a higher magnification in (f’). Arrowheads indicate the path of the GFP+ fibre. Scale bar—d 1 mm, e 200 μm, and f 500 μm