Figure 3.

Leukocyte-endothelium adhesion in aorta. (A) Mesenteric venules (i) and aortae (ii) of 8–9 month-old Cc1^+/+ (white bar), Cc1^−/− (black bar) and Cc1^{−/−xliver+} mice (gray bar) (n = 5–7/genotype) were removed and their leukocytes–endothelium interaction was assayed. Values are expressed as mean ± SEM. *P ≤ 0.05 versus Cc1^+/+ and †P ≤ 0.05 Cc1^{−/−xliver+} versus Cc1^−/− mice. (B) Western blot analysis of lysates from aorta of 8-month-old mice using α-VCAM-1 antibody to immunoblot (Ib) the upper half and α-tubulin to immunoblot the lower half for normalization against the amount of total proteins loaded. The apparent molecular weight (kDa) is indicated at the right hand-side of each gel. Gels represent more than two separate experiments performed on different mice per group. (C) Immunofluorescence analysis of VCAM-1 expression in the aortic root of 9 month-old mice (n = 5/genotype). DAPI blue staining was used to detect nuclei and visualize tissue context. Red VCAM-1 staining was higher in sections from Cc1^−/− mice (both ii at 10× and ii’ in the enlarged field at 20×) versus Cc1^+/+ (i) and Cc1^{−/−xliver+} (iii). To control for VCAM-1 antibody specificity, some Cc1^−/− sections were incubated with normal rat serum (NRS) as a non-specific primary antibody. L: The luminal aspect of the vessels was included for reference.