Figure 7.

Figure 7. Irisin treatment increases osteoblast number in Ovx mice. (a) Representative images of blue toluidine-stained osteoblasts in vertebral sections (magnification: 40×). (b–d) Analysis included osteoblast number per bone perimeter (OBs N./BP), active osteoblast number per bone perimeter (Active OBs N./BP) (white arrowhead) and bone lining cell number per bone perimeter (Lining cells N./BP) (black arrowhead) in Sham-veh (n = 6), Ovx-veh (n = 6) and Ovx-irisin (n = 5) mice. (e) Cfu-f formation in ex vivo cultures obtained from bone marrow harvested from Sham-veh (n = 6), Ovx-veh (n = 8) and Ovx-irisin (n = 9). (f) Quantification of Cfu-f formation. Quantification of mRNA expression for (g) Atf4 in ex vivo culture of osteoblasts from Sham-veh (n = 7), Ovx-veh (n = 6) and Ovx-irisin (n = 9) mice, (h) Opg in ex vivo culture of osteoblasts from Sham-veh (n = 9), Ovx-veh (n = 7) and Ovx-irisin (n = 8) mice, and (i) RankL mRNA in ex vivo culture of osteoblasts from Sham-veh (n = 7), Ovx-veh (n = 9) and Ovx-irisin (n = 9) mice. A one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons tests was performed in (b–d,f). Kruskal–Wallis with Dunn’s multiple comparison tests was performed in (g–i). Data are presented as box-and-whisker plots with median and interquartile ranges, from max to min, with all data points shown. * p < 0.05 vs. Sham-veh, # p < 0.05 or ## p < 0.01 vs. Ovx-veh.