Figure 5.

IL-9 promotes CKD-induced vein graft disease and augments mast cell prevalence in CKD mouse vein grafts. Mice were subjected to 5/6ths nephrectomy and vein graft surgery as in Figure 1. At the time of vein graft surgery, mice were injected with hamster IgG₂/κ—either anti-IL-9, or isotype control: 50 μg i.v. plus 250 μg i.p., followed by 300 μg i.p. 3×/week until vein graft harvest 4 week post-op. (A), Serial sections of perfusion-fixed vein grafts were stained with a modified trichrome or, immunofluorescently, for von Willebrand factor (vWF, green) and Hoechst 33 342 (blue, DNA). Scale bars = 200 μm. (B), The indicated cross sectional areas were calculated as in Figure 1 and plotted as means ± SE from seven mice in each group. ‘Vein graft endothelialization’ was calculated as in Figure 1, and plotted as means ± SE from five mice in each group. Compared with control mice: *P < 0.01. (C), The prevalence of quiescent and activated mast cells in vein grafts were assessed by toluidine blue staining, as in Figure 4. Shown are means ± S.E. from five vein grafts from each IgG-injected mouse group. Compared with control: *P < 0.05 (2-way ANOVA with Sidak post-hoc test).