Figure 1.

Skin thickness and induction of apoptosis in acute SSL-treated SKH1 wild-type and caspase-7 KO mice. (A) Epidermal skin thickness in mice treated or not treated with SSL (115 kJ/m²). After H&E staining of skin samples, epidermal skin thickness was analyzed in five separate areas using EZ-C1 FreeViewer Gold software (v. 3.2; Nikon, Melville, NY) and an average of three samples was calculated per group. Data are shown as mean values ± SD. The asterisk (*) indicates a significant (P < 0.05) increase in epidermal skin thickness. (B) The induction of apoptosis in untreated mouse skin or in skin from mice treated with SSL was analyzed by TUNEL assay. Apoptotic cells in skin tissue samples were detected according to the instructions provided by the manufacturer as described in Materials and methods section. Similar results were obtained from three samples per group.