Fig. 2.

Effect of VPA on liver histology and hepatocyte proliferation

N=4 for every time point of each group. (a) Histological and immunohistochemical staining of mice liver. Upper panel: hepatic histological specimen stained by HE at 0, 48, 120, or 168 h after VPA administration; middle panel: DNA synthesis detected by BrdU stain at the same time points; lower panel: proliferation of liver cells detected by immunohistochemical staining of mice liver treated by VPA using anti-Ki-67 antibodies at the same time points. Nuclear staining with BrdU and Ki-67 was considered positive. A positive rate was counted after VPA injection of BrdU (b) and Ki-67 (c) at 0, 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 120, or 168 h