Figure 2: Vasculature changes in COPD rats. | Scientific Reports

Figure 2: Vasculature changes in COPD rats.

From: The Role of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Small-airway Remodelling in a Rat Model of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Figure 2

(A) Histology of vasculature related cells and vascular density. Vascular endothelial cell was stained with immunofluorescence technique, CD31 (green), vascular smooth muscle cell and fibroblast, myfibroblast, α-SMA (red) and nucleus staining (blue) (original magnification ×250). (It is demonstrated that angiogenesis happened in COPD rats and can be effectively attenuated by sunitinib administrating. Here white arrowheads point to small arteries and the yellow one points to the small veins. (B) showed strong immunolabelling of α-SMA (brown) expressed in the muscular arteriesand abundant α-SMA (brown) presented in the accompanied bronchiole and sunitinib decreased the expression level (immunohistochemistry staining; original magnification ×200). (C–F) showed the COPD rats had the larger tube wall area of muscular artery (C), the thicker tube wall thickness (D) and higher WA% (E), WT% (F) compared to the normal rats (**P < 0.01, *P < 0.05, compared to the normal rats), while sunitinb intervention resulted in lesser tube wall area of muscular artery (C) and lower WT% (F) compared to rats disposed on NS, but tube wall thickness (D) and WA% (E) of muscular artery showed no difference (##P < 0.01, #P < 0.05, compared to the untreated COPD rats).

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