Fig. 7. Two subclones of C2C12 cells with inhibited syndecan-3 expression show a similar impairment in their differentiation capacity when transplanted into regenerating skeletal muscle. (A) Comparison of the quantification of the ratio of ß-galactosidase positive cells that are also positive for -dystroglycan (-DG) on sections taken day 5 after transplantation shows that syndecan-3 antisense clones, AN-10i and AN-8i, have similarly defective expression of this differentiation marker in contrast to C2C12i (^*P<0.01, unpaired Student's t-test). Owing to its great variability, the total number of ß-galactosidase-positive cells was not significantly different among the groups, but, interestingly, the two antisense clones showed opposite tendencies: a higher number of AN-8i cells and a lower number of AN-10i cells were observed compared to the mean number of C2C12i cells detected per section [for C2C12i, 206±224 cells/section (n=41) were observed vs. 294±180 cells/section (n=38) for AN-8i and 109±143 cells/section for AN-10i (n=39); mean±s.d.]. (B) A similar result is obtained when quantification of ß-galactosidase-positive myotubes is performed with embryonic myosin (EMHC), a second differentiation marker (^*P<0.01; ^**P<0.05, unpaired Student's t-test). (C) Representative transverse sections of ß-galactosidase-positive cells in skeletal muscle 5 days after grafting, stained using anti-embryonic myosin histochemistry, for C2C12i, AN-10i and AN-8i myoblasts. Scale bar: 25 µm.