Fig. 2.

Knock-out aquaporin 5 (AQP5) attenuated the density of alcian blue/periodic acid-Schiff staining. PAS-stained positive lung sections were examined at 200× magnification. Twenty to 50 consecutive airways from wild-type (WT) and AQP5^−/− mice sensitized and challenged with ovalbumin (OVA) were categorized according to the abundance of PAS⁺ goblet cells and assigned numerical scores (0: 5% goblet cells; 1: 5–25%; 2: 25–50%; 3: 50–75%; 4: 75%). The sum of the airway scores from each lung was divided by the number of airways examined for the histological goblet cell score (expressed as arbitrary units; U) (*P < 0·05 versus WT). Note: no data are shown from mice that were not sensitized and challenged, as the figure approximated to zero.