Representative images of transverse sectioned gastrocnemius muscle following Masson trichrome staining for the CS+ES group (A), CS−ES group (B), NCS+ES group (C) and NCS−ES group (D) at 12 w post-operatively.

<p>All data were expressed as the mean±standard deviation. *<i>p</i><0.05 for the comparison with CS−ES group. ^#<i>p</i><0.05 for the comparison with NCS+ES group.