Figure 6.

Albumin in serum and thoracic fluid and vascular permeability measurements. A: Albumin was measured in the serum (S, squares) and in the thoracic fluid (L, circles) in animals injected with TcsL-82 (15 ng/mouse) 0, 2, 4, and 6 hours before sacrifice. The number (n) of sera and thoracic fluids analyzed ranged from 6 to 10 and 4 to 8, respectively, for each time point as indicated. The mean is indicated (horizontal bars). B: Vascular permeability was estimated by measuring the amount of Evans blue present in the thoracic fluid. For that purpose, 15 to 30 minutes before mouse sacrifice, Evans blue dye was injected intravenously, and its amount present in the thoracic fluid was quantified by spectrophotometric analysis at 600 nm (open bars). The relevant background was the spectrophotometric analysis of the thoracic fluid present in mice not injected with Evans blue dye (striped bars). For each time point, two control mice were injected with the diluent only and with Evans blue 30 minutes before being euthanized. No fluid was collected from the thoracic cage of control mice (see Figure 1D), and therefore no Evans blue was measurable (black squares). The graphs are the means ± SD of three different experiments with four mice at each time point.