Figure 3

Chitosan/blood implants reside near the top of the drill holes and elicit neutrophil chemotaxis. (A, C) 1.25x magnification epifluorescence pictures of unstained sagittal cryosections taken in the middle of the holes, merged with bright field pictures to show the tissues. (C, D) 1.25x magnification pictures of collagen type I-immunostained serial sagittal sections adjacent to those shown in (A) and (B). Panel (A) shows that RITC-chitosan particles in all 3 implants at day 1 are laterally filling the top half of the defects (red stain above white arrows). Panel (C) shows that RITC-chitosan particles persist with residual implant after 21 days in vivo and co-localize with areas of high-density neutrophils, as shown in (D). (E, F) Total RITC-fluorescent area of each treated hole at 21 days post-operative (N=4) as taken from 1.25x magnification epifluorescence pictures of unstained cryosections taken at the edge of the hole (E) or in the middle of the hole (F). (mean ± standard deviation). In the middle of the hole, 150K chitosan particles tended to reside longer in the defects than 10K chitosan particles (p=0.12, F).