Figure 9.

Corticosteroid treatment of in 4-ethoxymethylene-2-phenyl-2-oxazolin-5-one (OXA) sensitised/topical challenged L2-IL5 mice leads to the attenuation of all histopathological metrics associated with this mouse model of human eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE). H&E stained sections of oesophagus (A, B) as well as sections subjected to major basic protein (MBP)-1 (D, E) and Ki67 (G, H) immunohistochemistry were evaluated and representative photomicrographs are presented from OXA-treated L2-IL5 mice treated with either vehicle alone (saline) or dexamethasone (DEX). Dexamethasone was administered to individual mice on protocol day 5, 8, 10 and 12 by intraperitoneal injection of 200 μg dexamethasone (Vedco, St Joseph, Missouri, USA) suspended in 200 μl of saline (figure 2). Control mice received 200 μl of saline alone. (C) The peak level of inflammation (epithelial histopathology score) in each group of mice was determined using an algorithm described in the supplementary materials (available online only) and expressed as group mean data±SEM. (F) A quantitative assessment of the oesophageal eosinophil infiltrate in each group of mice was determined and expressed as group mean data of the eosinophil density (ie, eosinophils/400× high powered field (hpf) (evaluating nine hpf/ oesophagus; three distal, three mid and three proximal))±SEM. (I) The density of Ki67⁺ cells were determined as the mean value (evaluating nine hpf/oesophagus; three distal, three mid and three proximal)±SEM. Scale bar represents 100 μM. Data are expressed as means±SEM derived from six to 10 individual mice per group. **p≤0.01, ***p≤0.001. This figure is only reproduced in colour in the online version.