Fig. 8
Muscone alleviates IDD progress through p53 signaling in vivo. (A) MRI of the inter-vertebral disc in mice from the different groups (sham group, IDD group, IDD + muscone group and IDD + muscone + SCH529074 group). Relative Pfirrmann grade score was evaluated and shown in the right panel. (B) The HE staining of the intervertebral disc from each group. (C) The immuno-histochemical staining assay for p53, p16INK4A and p21CIP in the NP tissue from each group. (D) Histological scores of intervertebral disc tissues in each group in (B). Quantitative analysis of the proportion of p53- (E), p21- (F), and p16- (G) positive cells in the immunohistochemical staining in (C). (H) Summery on the mechanism of muscone in intervertebral disc degeneration. Bars represent 100 μm or 1 mm as indicated. Data are shown as mean ± SD. #, P < 0.05; ##, P < 0.01.*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01. ##represented vs. Sham group, **represented vs. IDD group.
