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. 2014 Oct 28;9(10):e111072. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111072

Figure 2. Effects of ChABC, GF and daily exercise on chronic astrogliosis after SCI.

Figure 2

(A–P) Images show cross sections of the injured spinal cord immunostained for GFAP to mark astrocytes. Representative images from vehicle/untrained, vehicle/trained, ChABC+GFs/untrained and ChABC+GFs/trained injured rats are depicted at various rostral and caudal distances to the lesion epicenter. Confocal images show an overall reduction in the expression of GFAP particularly in the surrounding parenchymal region in ChABC+GFs/untrained and ChABC+GFs/trained groups relative to both Vehicle/Untrained and Vehicle/Trained groups. Images in D, H, L, and P depict magnified areas inside the boxed regions identified in B, F, J and N, respectively. (Q) Our quantitative analysis of GFAP immunointensity confirmed a significant reduction in astrogliosis in the ChABC+GFs/trained group at the SCI epicenter as well as 1 mm rostral and caudal in comparison to the Vehicle treated groups. ChABC+GFs/untrained group also demonstrated a significant decrease in GFAP immunoreactivity at the epicenter compared to both vehicle treated groups (Two-way ANOVA, *p<0.05, n = 3–6/group). Although ChABC+GFs/trained group consistently showed less astrogliosis compared to the ChABC+GFs/untrained counterpart, our statistical analysis showed no significant differences between the two groups.