Fig. 7
Immunohistochemical analysis of injured and treated brains at 1 and 3 weeks after injury. a Representative image of mouse brain section from sham group stained for GFAP (green) and DAPI (blue). b Representative image of mouse brain section from an injured group 1 week after injury. Image demonstrates diffuse reactive astrocytosis in both hemispheres. Graphs show mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of GFAP in the ipsilateral and contralateral cortices, and the ipsilateral hippocampus for each group. c Representative image of a mouse brain section from an injured group 3 weeks after injury and stained for GFAP and DAPI. Graphs show GFAP MFI in the cortices for each group at this time point. d Representative image of brain section from the sham mouse group stained for DAPI (blue) and CD68 (red). e Representative sections from an injured mouse brain 1 week after injury who received PBS treatment on day 5. Left image shows macrophage infiltration in the contralateral cortex. Right image shows the extent of needle damaging the cortex and macrophage infiltration. f Graphs depict CD68 MFI across the treatment groups in both cortices and the corpus callosum. g Representative images from an injured mouse brain 1 week after injury who received IL-4 MSCs on day 5. Left image shows extensive macrophage infiltration in the left cortex. Middle image shows macrophage migration in the corpus callosum. Right image shows needle-induced damage and macrophage infiltration of the hippocampus. h Representative images from brains 3 weeks after injury. Left image is a section from a mouse treated with IL-4 MSCs. It shows a cluster of cells surrounded by macrophages. Right image is a section from a mouse treated with PBS. i Representative image of brain section from sham mouse group stained with DAPI and Fluoro-Jade C. j Representative images 1 week after brain injury. Left images demonstrate neuronal degeneration in the cortex. Right image shows neuronal degeneration in the hippocampus. k Representative image 3 weeks after brain injury with less neuronal degeneration than after the first week. Graphs shows mean ± SD; one-way ANOVAs with Dunnett’s multiple comparison against the PBS group. *p< 0.05, **p < 0.01