Fig. 6: Intravenous injection of the CMV-siRTNF-α circuit protects mice from DSS-induced chronic UC.
From: In vivo self-assembled siRNA as a modality for combination therapy of ulcerative colitis
a Flow chart of the experimental design. b Body weight curves (n = 6 in each group). c DAI scores (n = 6 in each group). d Representative macroscopic features of colons. Scale bar: 1 cm. e Determination of serum levels of IL-6, IL-12p70, IL-17A and IL-23 by ELISA (n = 6 in each group). f Representative images of H&E staining of colon sections. Scale bar: 100 μm. g Histological scores of colon sections (n = 6 in each group). h Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of the relative expression levels of TNF-α mRNA in the colon (n = 6 in each group). i Determination of the absolute expression levels of TNF-α protein in the colon by ELISA (n = 6 in each group). j Immunofluorescence staining of TNF-α (red) and DAPI (blue) in colon sections. Scale bar: 50 μm. Each immunofluorescence staining was repeated independently three times, and representative images are shown. Values are presented as the mean ± SEM. Significance was determined using one-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison in (c, e, g, h, I) or two-way ANOVA followed by Dunnett’s multiple comparison in (b). *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.005.
