Figure 4

Histology of skin and renal pathology in pristane-injected cathepsin S (CTSS)—overexpressing mice. (a) H&E-stained section of dorsal skin (× 200 magnification) from WT and TG mice 8 months after treatment with pristane. (b) Epidermal and dermal thickness of dorsal skin from WT and TG mice. WT wild type, TG transgenic. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, versus WT non-treated group. (c) H&E-stained kidney sections (× 200 magnification) from WT and TG mice 8 months after treatment with pristane. Arrows indicate glomerular abnormalities. (d) Renal histological scores represent nephritis severity in WT and TG mice 8 months after pristane injection. (e) Albumin concentration in urea measured by ELISA. (f) Glomerular immunoglobulin (IgG) and complement (C3) deposition analysed by direct immunofluorescence in WT and TG mice 8 months after treatment with pristane. Representative western blot showing, (g) MHC II, TLR7 and CTSS expression in the spleen and (h) expression of F4/80⁺ monocytes/macrophages and Ly6G⁺ neutrophils in the kidneys. β-actin was used as a loading control. Precursor and mature CTSS bands were cropped from different gel and grouped together. Other band were cropped from the different gel and grouped together. Original blots are shown in Supplementary Information (i) F4/80⁺ monocyte/macrophage infiltration analysed by immunohistochemistry (× 200 magnification) in WT and TG mice 8 months after treatment with pristane. WT wild type, TG transgenic. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, versus untreated WT group.