Fig. 7

Depletion of BAMs reduces granulocyte infiltration in the ischemic cortex. Rats received clodronate (CL) or vehicle (V) liposomes in the left ventricle 4 days before occlusion of the right middle cerebral artery and the brain was analyzed 1 day after ischemia. a) Myeloperoxidase (MPO) immunohistochemistry (brown, arrows) of the core of infarction in paraffin sections (counterstained with hematoxylin in blue) of ischemic rats treated with V or CL. Scale bar: 20 μm. Blind cell counting showed that CL (n = 12) reduces the numbers of MPO⁺ cells in the ischemic cortex compared to the V (n = 8) (*p = 0.05), but differences in subcortical regions were not statistically significant (CL n = 12, V n = 10, p = 0.12). b) An independent group of rats treated with V or CL was studied by flow cytometry 24 h postischemia after dissection of cortical and subcortical brain regions. The numbers of REA535⁺ granulocytes was determined. Values are expressed as number of cells per gram of brain tissue. The number of REA535⁺ cells decreased in both regions after BAM depletion. However, differences between treatment groups were statistically significant in cortical regions (*p = 0.038), whereas only a trend was observed in subcortical regions (p = 0.085)