Fig. 2.

Fibrotic changes of irradiated and non-irradiated regions by diffused irradiation (20 Gy). a Masson’s trichrome (upper) and Sirius red (bottom) from animals in the non-irradiated control (Con) and 20Gy irradiated groups. Graphs represent quantification of fibrosis score in irradiated left lung regions and non-irradiated right lung regions. Magnification, × 1.25 and × 100; scale bar, 50 μm (n = 3, mean ± SD, *p < 0.05 vs. compared to the age-matched unirradiated control group (Trichrome), *p < 0.05 vs. compared to the corresponding 1-week group (Sirius red), †p < 0.05 vs. compared to the 1-week unirradiated control group, one-way ANOVA). b Heat-map representing the differentially expressed fibrosis-related genes by diffused irradiation in both irradiated left and non-irradiated right lungs. Each column represents pooled lung tissue RNA samples from three mice at each time point to exclude experimental bias. The expression ratio color scale ranges from red (high) to green (low), as indicated by the scale bar with log 2 units. c List of fibrosis-related genes with a fold ratio > 2 or < 0.5 (for up and downregulation, respectively) compared to the control. d Quantitative RT-PCR using focal irradiated and non-irradiated neighboring lung tissue from three individual mice at the indicated time points. Each mRNA expression was normalized to gapdh (n = 3, mean ± SD)