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Fig. 7 | Acta Neuropathologica Communications

Fig. 7

From: Nanomedicine-driven neuropathic pain relief in a rat model is associated with macrophage polarity and mast cell activation

Fig. 7

Mast cell number and extracellular Mcpt1 particles are lowered in ipsilateral sciatic nerve following CXB-NE treatment. The number of mast cells and extracellular Mcpt1 particles, both stained with anti-Mcpt1 antibody, are counted for each region of interest on tissue sections at the ipsilateral sciatic nerve—as well as ipsilateral L4 and L5 DRG—of CCI animals at both day-12 and day-18. At the ipsilateral sciatic nerve, mast cell number per ROI decreases significantly (a) in the CXB-NE condition (a and c) at day-12 (p = .0014) compared to the DF-NE condition (a and b). At day 18, both the CXB-NE (a and e) and DF-NE (a and d) conditions have significantly fewer mast cells per ROI compared to the DF-NE condition at day-12. Also notable is that there are significantly less (p = .0303) mast cells per ROI at day-18 (a and d) in the DF-NE condition compared to day-12 (a and b). There are no significant differences in mast cell counts among treatment groups in the DRG (k) (mast cells are indicated by yellow arrows in l, m, n, and o). The representative images—g, h, i and j—have been converted to a binary format to better visualize Mcpt1 particles, which are counted by applying a size threshold during analysis. Mcpt1 particles per ROI are significantly reduced (p < .0001) at the ipsilateral sciatic nerve milieu in the day-12 CXB-NE condition (f and h) compared to the day-12 DF-NE group (f and g). Interestingly, the particle number per ROI remains at similar levels in the day-18 DF-NE group (f and i) and is observed at similar levels again in the day-18 CXB-NE group (f and j), a significant increase (p < .0001) compared to the day-12 CXB-NE group (h). In the DRG, there is no significant difference between treatment conditions in either the day-12 or day-18 groups (p, q, r, s, and t), however, both conditions show a significant increase in Mcpt1 particles at day-18 (p < .0001). All scale bars are 15 μm. All images were resolved with a Nikon 40x oil immersion objective. Data is represented as mean ± SEM (n = 3 animals, 14–26 ROI; *p < .05, **p < .01, ****p < .0001, one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test)

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