Fig. 3

Chronic MLi-2 causes no apparent changes in kidney histology but causes enlargement of pneumocytes in the lung. a Hematoxylin and eosin-stained kidney and lung sections are shown from control and MLi-2 treated animals. There was no apparent change in kidney histology in these animals, but in the lung there appeared to be several enlarged alveolar epithelial cells (arrowheads). b To further characterize whether these cells were type II pneumocytes, lung sections were stained with an antibody recognizing prosurfactant protein C (proSP-C). A portion of these cells appear to be larger in MLi-2 treated lungs than in control treated lungs. A threshold analysis script was then applied to the tissue (analyzed). c The relative frequency of proSP-C positive objects is shifted rightward with MLi-2 treatment for several animals, though the overall average object size is not significantly increased (d, p = 0.2103, unpaired t test). e The relative frequency of optical density (OD) of proSP-C objects is also right shifted with MLi-2 treatment and the average OD of objects is increased (f, p = 0.0279, unpaired t test). Scale bars = 100 μm. The relative frequencies of individual mice are shown in (c) and (e). All plots are means and error bars represent s.e.m. with individual values plotted