Fig. 4

Elevated osteoclast activity in non-unions comes with high proliferative activity. Immunohistochemical staining with primary antibody against PCNA and TRAP-staining. Elevated RANKL levels in non-unions, which could be seen in qRT-PCR and western blots lead to excessive osteoclast activity, spotted in TRAP-stainings. Interestingly, cell proliferation in non-unions evaluated by PCNA stainings was highly activated just similar to control animals. Scale bar represents 100 µm; p-value: *< 0.05; **< 0.01; ***< 0.001