Figure 3.

Histological analysis of skin from 3- and 4-month-old wild-type and cathepsin L homozygous mice. Panels a–c show skin sections from outbred mice. Panels d and e show skin sections from mice that have been backcrossed to BL/6 partners for five generations. (a) Skin section (×125) from a 3-month-old wild-type male of normal morphology. Note the apparent boundary between anagen (arrow) and catagen/telogen follicles (arrowhead). (b) Skin section (×250) from a 3-month-old homozygote cathepsin L male that has a normal epidermal thickness but showing utricles (arrowhead). (c) Skin section from a 3-month-old homozygote cathepsin L female showing hypodermal granulomatous inflammation with multinucleated giant cells centred on keratin (arrowhead) (×250). (d) Skin section from a 4-month-old homozygote cathepsin L male showing hypodermally located hair follicle (arrowhead) lying parallel to the plane of the skin (×250). (e) Skin section from a 4-month-old homozygote cathepsin L male. Note the normal epidermal thickness with abnormal follicular keratinization (arrowhead) (×250).