Fig. 2.

Body weight and clinical status. Monitoring of body weight throughout the (a) 2-week and (b) 8-week study. (c) %TWL before termination of the experiment was significantly higher in SG mice in the 2- and 8-week experiment. For animal welfare assessment a clinical scoring system was used. (d) shows the clinical score and degree of strain in the first postoperative week and (f) before termination of the experiment. ∗p < 0.05, ∗∗p < 0.01 and ∗∗∗p < 0.001.