Fig. 3. Comparison of vascularization of wild-type and VEGF^120/120 skeletal elements by CD31 immunostaining. At E14.5, blood vessels surround the tibia in wild-type mice (A, arrows) but remain far from the surface of the tibia and fibula in the VEGF^120/120 mice (B; arrows indicate surfaces of tibia and tibula). At E15.5, blood vessels have fully penetrated into the primary ossification center of wild-type (C) tibia (arrow). At E15.5, vessels are only now surrounding the hypertrophic zone in tibia and fibula of VEGF^120/120 mice (D, arrow), whereas they are invading the diaphysis at E16.5 (E). At E16.5, large numbers of blood vessels surround the developing calvarial bones in the wild-type (F) mice (arrow), but in the VEGF^120/120 (G) mice there are fewer vessels (arrow), and they appear large in diameter (arrowheads).

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