Fig. 2. Cellular infiltration of the airways in response to chronic allergen challenge is inhibited in Gal-3 KO mice.

BALF collected from control and OVA-challenged Gal-3 KO and WT mice 24 hours after the last challenge was evaluated for total as well as differential cell counts by microscopic evaluation of cytocentrifuged slides (n = 8 for control groups and 9 for OVA-challenged groups) and expressed as mean ± SE of the number of cells × 10⁴ (A). Cellular infiltration of lung tissue was evaluated by H&E staining of paraformaldehyde-fixed lung tissue sections from control and allergen-challenged mice. Representative images from each group at a magnification of ×200 are shown (B). Lung tissue eosinophils were evaluated by immunohistochemical staining of lung sections with eosinophil-specific MBP using rat mAb against murine MBP. MBP-positive cells in five randomly selected non-overlapping microscopic fields were counted (magnification of ×400) and results were expressed as the average number (mean ± SE) of cells/field (n = 9 mice/group) (C). *p <0.05 when compared with WT OVA mice.