Assessing the nuclear count with DAPI showed that both protocol B at day 14 and protocol A at day 35 had a significantly lower cell number in comparison to native (P-value < 0.05). These results have been confirmed with H&E staining (Fig. 4) which too has shown a significant reduction in nuclear count for both protocol B at day 14 and protocol A at day 35 (P-value < 0.05) relative to native samples.Figure 4H&E stained cartilage sections demonstrating decellularization of native tissue with quantification of nuclei count per slide (n = 3) for different protocols using imageJ. Error bars for standard deviation.