Fig.3.

Proliferative and apoptosis cell signaling after CNR and photothermal treatment. One week after photothermal treatment, the mice were euthanized and bladders were excised and subjected to formalin fixing and paraffin-embedding. Immunohistochemical stains were performed as described in the Materials and Methods section. Ki67 staining (Fig. 3A) shows an increase in nuclear expression in the bladder urothelium after treatment with the recommended laser treatment dose (power density of 2.1 W/cm² for 30 seconds) (Fig. 3A-III), while negative staining is observed in the bladder urothelium of mice from CNR only (Fig. 3A-I), and laser only (Fig. 3A-II) control treatments. Photothermal treatment at higher doses was associated with external skin toxicity (power density of 3.2 W/cm² for 30 seconds) and showed an increase in the expression of Ki67, extending into the muscularis propria (Fig. 3A-IV), consistent with a thermal treatment effect and skin changes at higher doses. Cleaved caspase-3 staining shows a similar pattern (Fig. 3B, V, VI, VII) except that there was not a positive stain in the muscularis propria observed in the mouse with higher dose of photothermal treatment (Fig. 3B-VIII).