Fig. 5.

Reduced muscle disease in laminin-α2-deficient mice that transgenically express α7 integrin. (A) Hematoxylin and eosin staining of sections from TA muscles from 4-week-old mice shows more muscle pathology in dy^W−/− mice compared with that in wild-type. The TA muscle of dy^W−/−;itga7+ mice exhibited reduced muscle pathology. Scale bar: 20 μm. (B) The percentage of myofibers containing CLN were used to evaluate muscle repair in TA muscles from 4-week-old mice. Compared with that in wild-type, dy^W−/− showed a 19-fold increase in the percentage of myofibers containing CLN. By contrast, dy^W−/−;itga7+ TA muscle showed a 66.5% reduction in the percentage of myofibers with CLN (***P<0.001). (C) Myofiber cross-sectional area revealed dy^W−/−;itga7+ animals have a fiber size distribution closer to that of wild-type animals than to dy^W−/− mice (supplementary material Fig. S1).