Fig. 2.

The progression of renal fibrosis was suppressed in Clk/Clk 5/6Nx mice.

(A) Serum creatinine and serum urea nitrogen (SUN) production in sham-operated and 5/6Nx wild-type or Clk/Clk mice. (B) Left: Masson's trichome staining of tissue fibrosis (blue). Right: quantitative analysis of interstitial fibrosis by light microscopy in 5/6Nx and sham-operated mouse kidney tissues 8 weeks after the second operation in wild-type or Clk/Clk mice. (C) Left: apoptotic cells are identified by TUNEL staining (green). Right: Caspase-3/7 activity in sham-operated and 5/6Nx wild-type or Clk/Clk mouse kidneys 8 weeks after the second operation. (D) Functional analysis of gene expression in sham-operated and 5/6Nx wild-type and Clk/Clk mice based on functional annotation clustering by the Database for Annotation, Visualization, and Integrated Discovery (DAVID). (E) Left: F4/80 immunostaining (brown). Right: F4/80 protein expression profiles in the kidneys of sham-operated and 5/6Nx wild-type or Clk/Clk mice at Zeitgeber time (ZT) 6 after the second operation. Quantitative analysis of F4/80 staining in tissues from sham-operated and 5/6Nx wild-type or Clk/Clk mice by light microscopy 8 weeks after the second operation. Values are the means ± SEMs for triplicate experiments (n = 3–6). *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 by Bonferroni/Dunn test.