Research Article

Lymphatic Drainage-Promoting Effects by Engraftment of Artificial Lymphatic Vascular Tissue Based on Human Adipose Tissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells in Mice

Figure 4

Regeneration of lymphatic drainage by gluteal transplantation of ASCLT visualized by ICG. Subcutaneous transplantation of ASCLT was performed to the gluteal of LDI model mice. After three weeks, 0.5% ICG solution was injected into the foot for visualizing the lymphatic drainage (as shown in Supporting Information 2a). (a) The control without ASCLT transplantation. The drainage in the left limb to gluteal is not detected. (b) The control with subcutaneous transplantation of ASCT (tissue constructed by hASCs alone without HDLECs and lymphatic network) into the gluteal on the route of drainage (yellow circle). The formation of ICG-positive drainage is faintly observed at left side of the limb. (c–f) Four examples of ASCLT subcutaneous transplantation. (c) and (d) show widely spread ICG-positive drainage at the side of the left limb to abdomen. (e) and (f) show the regeneration of the flow to the external sacral lymph node (yellow arrows) suggesting the recovery of intact lymphatic drainage. Red arrow indicates the ICG-positive external sacral lymph node in the intact lymphatic drainage at right limb without lymph node resection.
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