Fig. 10

Increased GFAP immunostaining and unaltered number of GFAP/S100β-positive cells in the VPL 28 days after spinal nerve ligation. Microphotographs are examples of GFAP (red) and S100β (green) immunostaining as well as DAPI staining (deep blue) in the cVPL subregion (A) in naïve, sham, and SNL animals 28 days after the beginning of the experiments. White arrows point at GFAP/S100β/DAPI-positive cells (part of the cell body appears in turquoise (green and deep blue) and is closed to at least two thick GFAP-labeled fibers). Note that the GFAP-labeled fibers are thicker in the cVPL subregion of SNL rats but that there is the same amount of GFAP/S100β/DAPI-positive cells. Morphometric analysis reveals that GFAP immunofluorescent surfaces are significantly increased in the cVPL subregion (B1: one-way ANOVA F(2, 12) = 12.62, p = 0.0011) of SNL rats (n = 6, 3 slices per animal) compared to the ones of naïve (n = 4, 3 slices per animal) and sham (n = 5, 3 slices per animal) rats but that is not the case in the iVPL subregion (B2: one-way ANOVA F(2, 12) = 4.246, p = 0.0403, but no significant differences with the Tukey’s multiple comparison test). Quantification of GFAP/S100β/DAPI-positive cells in the contralateral (C1: one-way ANOVA F(2, 12) = 0.5752, p = 0.5763) and ipsilateral (C2: one-way ANOVA F(2, 12) = 0.285, p = 0.7566) VPL subregion reveals no significant difference between experimental conditions. Post hoc test (Tukey’s multiple comparison test): **p < 0.01