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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Oct 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Med. 2012 Mar 18;18(4):600–604. doi: 10.1038/nm.2679

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Inflammation-induced enteric neuron death requires pannexin-1 and Asc but not Nlrp3. (a) Pannexin–1 (magenta) and GFAP (green) immunoreactivity in a single optical slice (1 μm) through a myenteric ganglion from the mouse colon myenteric plexus. Enteric glia (GFAP, green) clearly surround pannexin–1–ir (magenta) neural cell bodies and processes. Boxed area in lower left is enlarged in lower right to demonstrate the intimate association between pannexin–1 expressing neurons and enteric glia. Scale bar = 20 μm. (b) Effects of inhibiting pannexin–1 or loss of Asc or Nlrp3 on mean packing density of myenteric neurons in DNBS, DSS, and oxazolone models of colitis (Wt DNBS, n = 5; Wt DNBS-PB, n = 5; Pycard−/−DNBS, n = 4; Nlrp3−/−DNBS, n = 5; DSS-saline, n = 8; DSS-PB, n = 5; Oxaz-PB, n = 6). Neural packing density was not significantly different between control animals from the various genetic backgrounds (data not shown). (c) Asc (magenta) and GFAP immunoreactivity in the mouse colon myenteric plexus. GFAP–ir glial cells (green) surround Asc–ir neurons (magenta). Macroscopic damage and weight loss for treatment groups in (b) shown in (d) and (e), respectively. Significance determined by ANOVA with ** P<0.001 and ***P<0.0001 compared to saline–treated, non–inflamed controls.

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