Figure 2.

Histological analysis of defective calvarial bones in END mice at newborn stage. (A and B) H&E coronal sections of wild type and (A’ and B’) END mouse heads at newborn stage. The highlighted area in red box magnifies the parietal bone (arrows) showing a much thinner bone plate in END (B’) than in wild type sample (B). (C and C’) Wild type and (D and D’) END calvarial bones (single arrow) and the osteogenic front of sutures (arrows) revealed significant difference in ALP activity with much weaker staining intensity in END samples. (E) Immunohistochemistry of Ocn in the osteogenic front of sutures and calvarial bones (arrows) in wild type sample demonstrated stronger intensity than (E’) in END calvaria. (F and F’) Nuclear staining of Runx2 in the osteogenic front of sutures (arrows) clearly indicated greater numbers of positive cells in wild type than in END calvaria. Results were quantitated by average pixel numbers positive staining per 400× field. (G) Ocn and (H) Runx2 mRNA level by real time PCR with calvarial bone tissue (**P<0.01). Scale bar: 500um for A and A’; 100um for B and B’; 50um for C,C’,D,D’,F and F’.