Fig. 6

Neutrophil elastase inhibition attenuates inhibitory glial/fibrotic scarring and secondary damage after spinal cord injury (SCI). Samples from sham or injured untreated (Injury) or after sivelestat treatment were prepared at DPI-28 as described in the Methods section. Sivelestat (30 mg/kg, i.p.) was given for 14 days (28 doses) and animals were sacrificed at day 28. Zeiss confocal microscope was used to evaluate the Immunofluorescence after IHC. The merge function of Zeiss microscope was used and 16 areas were evaluated. a Representative merges images (longitudinal) for Iba-1 (green), GFAP (red), fibronectin (yellow) at DPI-28. RT-PCR results of GFAP (b-i), Iba-1 (b-ii), and Mac-1 (b-iii), expression at DPI-28 (n = 3/group). Representative images of laminin (green), rat endothelial cell antigen (RECA-1; yellow) (c), TGF-β1 (green) (d) and neurofilaments (N.F) and Tuj-1 (e), at DPI-28 (3 fields/slide, n = 3/group). GAPDH was used as internal controls for real-time quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction. Data represent means ± S.E.M. ^###p < 0.001 vs. sham group. **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 vs. Injury group