Fig. 1 | Scientific Reports

Fig. 1

From: Glycosylated lysosomal membrane protein promotes tissue repair after spinal cord injury by reducing iron deposition and ferroptosis in microglia

Fig. 1The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

Iron deposition increases in the injured spinal cord, coinciding with an elevated expression of the iron associated protein FTH1 in microglia. (A) Prussian blue stains the iron in sagittal sections pre-injury (pre) and at 3, 7, 14 and 28 days post-injury (dpi). The blue, red and green boxes represent the regions of interest (ROI) in rostral, epicenter and caudal to the lesion site, respectively. Asterisks indicate the lesion core. Scale bar: 200 μm. (B) is the ROI from (A), scale bar: 20 μm. (C) Percentage of iron deposition area relative to the injured spinal cord area pre and at 3, 7, 14 and 28 dpi. ND is short for not detected. (Data in (C) are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3 independent experiments. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by Tukey’s post hoc test). (D) Proportion of iron deposition area in rostral, epicenter and caudal of the injured spinal cord. (Data in (D) are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3 independent experiments. ****p < 0.0001, two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test). (E) Schematic of spinal cord indicates measurement area. The box area is the region shown in (F). (F) Immunofluorescence staining of FTH1 (green), CX3CR1 (red) and nuclei (blue) in sagittal slices pre and at 3, 7, 14 and 28 dpi. Merged shows the merged images of FTH1, CX3CR1, and nuclei. White arrowheads point to the co-staining cells. Scale bar: 20 μm. (G) Quantification of the proportion of FTH1+CX3CR1+ cells in CX3CR1+ cells pre and at 3, 7, 14 and 28 dpi. (Data are presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3 independent experiments. ****p < 0.0001, one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post hoc test).

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