Figure 4

Analyses of clonogenic potential. Comparing all ages and both genders, MSC preparations from the BM of younger donors trended toward more colony forming cells than MSC preparations from older donors (n = 50) (A). Spearman two-tailed correlation test. Comparing age groups including both genders, significantly more colonies could be detected in young donors (<45 years) (n = 11) compared to middle-aged (n = 26) and older donors (n = 13) (B). ANOVA analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s Multiple Comparison Test (*P <0.05; **P <0.01). Error bars: SD. In BM-MSC preparations from female donors more colony forming cells could be detected (n = 23) compared to BM-MSC preparations from male donors (n = 27) (C). Two-tailed Student’s t-test (*P <0.05). Error bars: SD. Age-group specific analyses for each gender confirmed that more colonies could be detected in young female donors (<45 years) compared to older donors (D, E). ANOVA analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s Multiple Comparison Test (*P <0.05). Error bars: SD. The clonogenic potential of the cells within the BM-MSC preparations was negatively correlated to the population doubling time (n = 42) and the cell diameter (n = 22) (F, G). Spearman two-tailed correlation test (**P <0.01; ****P <0.0001). The percentage of CD10⁺, CD71⁺, CD106⁺, CD119⁺ CD146⁺, CD166⁺ and CD271⁺ cells correlated positively with the clonogenic potential of the BM-MSCs (n = 31 except for CD119 (n = 25)) (H-N). The specific antibody mediated fluorescence per cell (ΔGeo Mean) of CD29, CD44, CD119, CD146, CD166 and HLA ABC correlated positively with the clonogenic potential of the MSCs (n = 31 except for CD119 (n = 25)) (O-T). Spearman two-tailed correlation test (*P <0.05; **P <0.01; ***P <0.001; ****P <0.0001).