Fig. 1: Platelet thrombi are found in injured muscles and are prevented via antibody-based platelet depletion. | Nature Communications

Fig. 1: Platelet thrombi are found in injured muscles and are prevented via antibody-based platelet depletion.

From: Platelet-derived chemokines promote skeletal muscle regeneration by guiding neutrophil recruitment to injured muscles

Fig. 1

a Experimental strategy to assess the role of platelets in skeletal muscle regeneration. The i.v. injection of a platelet-depleting antibody is done 2 h before muscle injury and is repeated at day 4 after injury. Control mice are injected with an IgG control antibody. Muscle injury is induced via the injection of cardiotoxin (CTX) into a tibialis anterior (TA) muscle whereas the contralateral TA muscle is mock-injected with PBS. TA muscles are retrieved at day 1, 7, and 14 for further analyses. b–d Immunostaining of TA muscles from control and platelet-depleted mice, either injured via the injection of cardiotoxin (CTX) or uninjured (mock-injected with PBS). WGA (red) provides an outline of myofibers whereas platelet aggregates (green) of different sizes are detected with anti-GP1bβ antibodies. Platelet thrombi are found in injured muscles at day 1 and day 7 from CTX-induced injury but their presence is minimal at day 14 from injury and they are not detected in uninjured TA muscles. Antibody-based platelet depletion results in the lack of platelets aggregates in injured muscles, indicating that this strategy is effective for testing the role of platelets in muscle regeneration. The graph displays the mean ±SD with n = 5 (from 5 control independent mice) and n = 4 (from 4 platelet-depleted independent mice) biologically independent uninjured muscles; n = 7 biologically independent CTX-injured muscles obtained from n = 7 independent control mice at day 7 after injury; and n = 10 biologically independent CTX-injured muscles obtained from n = 10 independent mice for each of the other timepoints and conditions analyzed; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001 (two-way ANOVA with Tukey post hoc test); &&&P < 0.001 (two-way ANOVA with Sidak post hoc test) refers to the comparison of muscles from control versus platelet-depleted mice at a given timepoint of regeneration. Source data are provided in the Source data file.

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