Figure 3.

Aging restructures colonic epithelial tight junctions. Confocal micrographs of cross-sections imaged from colonic biopsies are shown for young (left) and old (middle) baboons in addition to a quantification of the fluorescent optical densities of the micrographs (right). Overall, there was a significant decrease in zonula occluden-1 (ZO-1; A), occludin (B), and junctional adhesion molecule (JAM)-A immunofluorescence (C). Although there was a trend toward increased claudin-2 expression, the change was not statistically significant (D). Statistical significance was *p < .05 by Student’s unpaired t test.