Figure 3.

Vitamin D supplementation of initially deficient mice reduced the expression the claudin‐1 but not occludin on lung epithelium. Female BALB/c mice (dams) were fed vitamin D‐supplemented (VitD⁺) or vitamin D‐nonsupplemented (VitD⁻) diets from 3 weeks of age and used to produce offspring. A subgroup of vitamin D‐deficient offspring was fed a vitamin D‐supplemented diet from 8 weeks of age (VitD^−/+). Representative sections of lungs obtained from 12‐week‐old mice from each treatment were stained with antibodies specific for (A) claudin‐1 and (B) occludin (green arrows indicate binding of green fluorescently tagged antibodies), with DAPI used to identify the nucleus of cells (blue nuclei). Green fluorescence levels were quantified in 13 epithelial cells for three sections (×60 magnification) per sample with the mean for each sample shown (n = 5 mice/treatment). Data are shown as mean + SD (*P < 0.05, one‐way ANOVA).