Figure 2.

Chronic estradiol treatment decreases intimal hyperplasia after mechanical injury of the femoral artery without affecting medial thickness. Four-week-old wild-type female mice were ovariectomized and subcutaneously treated with placebo (control) or 17β-estradiol (E2) until the end of the protocol. At 6 weeks, mice were submitted to mechanical injury of the femoral artery. Twenty-eight days later, mice were euthanized, and arteries were harvested for morphometric and immunohistological analysis. A, Quantitative analysis of neointima/media ratio (left) and medial thickness (right) of control (white bars) and E2 treated (black bars) ovariectomized mice. Values are presented as mean±SEM (n=7–15), and statistically compared with Mann–Whitney U test. **P<0.01. B, Representative images of injured femoral arteries cross sections of control (left) and 17β-estradiol (E2, right) treated ovariectomized mice stained with Masson Trichrome (top), immunostained with anti–α smooth muscle actin (SMA) antibody to detect smooth muscle cells (middle) or with anti-CD3 antibody to detect T lymphocytes (bottom). Bars, 100 µm.