Figure 5
From: Intravenous immunoglobulins improve skin fibrosis in experimental models of systemic sclerosis
Pro-fibrotic markers of all included mice in the curative design. (a) Histograms depicting mRNA expression levels of (a) Tgfb, (b) Acta2, (c) Col1a1 and (d) Fn1 genes quantified on frozen skin samples by qRT-PCR. (e) Representative microphotographs on skin sections stained by immunofluorescence for αSMA (green) scanned at 40X magnification. Nuclei were counterstained using DAPI (bleu). (f) Representative microphotographs for Picrosirius Red staining of skin sections for collagen fibers (red) scanned at 20X magnification. Digital images were processed with Zeiss LSM Browser. (g) Histograms for αSMA and (h) collagen deposition quantified on three microscope fields, using the threshold detection method. (i) Histogram depicting hydroxyproline content levels. Data represent the fold change compared to PBS + 2% Maltose group and are quoted as mean ± SEM and analyzed by Kruskal–Wallis test with Dunn’s multiple comparisons; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; ****p < 0.0001.
