Fig. 2

TOH-containing emulgel alleviated epidermal hyperplasia and decreased keratinocyte differentiation in IMQ-induced psoriatic mice. (a) Representative H&E sections of the dorsal skin of the mice in all the groups. Histological analysis revealed greater severity of parakeratosis and acanthosis in the psoriatic mice treated with emulgel (IMQ + Emulgel group) than in the psoriatic mice treated with TOH-containing emulgel (IMQ + Tryptophol group). Representative images of skin sections were taken at ×10 magnification, with a scale bar of 100 μm. (b) Quantification of epidermal thickness in all groups (n = 8). (c) Representative Ki67 immunostaining of the dorsal skin of all groups of mice. Ki67⁺ cells are indicated by black arrows. Representative images of skin sections were taken at ×10 magnification (scale bar: 100 μm), and the inset images were taken at ×40 magnification (scale bar: 50 μm). (d) Quantification of Ki67-positive cells (n = 8). (e–h) RT-qPCR analysis of the keratinocyte differentiation markers including K6 (e), K16 (f), K17 (g), and involucrin (h) (n = 4). The data are expressed as fold changes relative to the cream base groups. All the data are presented as the means ± SD. Statistical significance was determined by one-way ANOVA analysis. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01 and ***p < 0.001.