Figure 9.

CXCR3-immunoreactivity (IR) in the urinary bladder (wholemounts and cryostat sections) of control female mice. (A,B) Epifluorescence images of wholemount urothelium preparations from control mice with robust CXCR3-IR in large, hexagonally shaped umbrella cells (*) and smaller urothelial cells that may represent basal and intermediate populations (arrows). (C,D) Epifluorescence images of wholemount urothelium preparations with robust and widespread CXCR3-IR in suburothelial nerve fibers (arrows). (C,D) CXCR3-IR was expressed in larger and smaller caliber nerve fibers. (E) Epifluorescence image of CXCR3-IR in cryostat bladder sections of the detrusor smooth muscle from control mice. CXCR3-IR in the detrusor smooth muscle was punctate in nature and diffusely distributed (arrows). (F) Epifluorescence image of a cryostat section of urinary bladder with CXCR3-IR expression in the urothelium (arrows), the lamina propria (*) and detrusor smooth muscle (arrows). Little CXCR3-IR was present in the lamina propria. Calibration bar represents 80 μm in (A–D) and 50 μm in (E,F). (G) CXCR3 mRNA transcript expression in the urothelium and detrusor smooth muscle of control female mice as determined by qRT-PCR. CXCR3 mRNA is expressed as the fold change of relative CXCR3 expression/relative L32 expression and normalized to expression in urothelium. Sample sizes are n = 3–5 in each group.