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. 2019 Apr;189(4):868–885. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2018.12.010

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Analysis of the intervertebral disks in the JNK1/2 dKO and control (CTRL) mice. A–X: Safranin O/fast green stain showing 4-week–old (A–P) and 10-week–old (Q–X) thoracic (A–H) and lumbar spine (I–X) intervertebral disks (IVDs), vertebral growth plate (GP), and cartilage endplate (CEP) from wild-type (WT), CTRL, heterozygous (Het), and dKO mice in coronal orientation. D: Thoracic IVDs of 4-week–old dKO mice show strong proteoglycan (PG) stain surrounding a reduced area of nucleus pulposus (NP; yellow arrow) and absence of annulus fibrosus (AF) lamellar structure; in some thoracic segments, a PG-rich cartilaginous tissue connected the cranial and caudal vertebral growth plates (black arrow). L and P: In the lumbar IVDs of 4-week–old dKO mice, the NP was either small (yellow arrows) or absent (not shown here), and both AF and NP were replaced by cartilaginous tissue. Q–X: In 10-week–old dKO, most of AF and NP in distal thoracic (not shown here) and lumbar segments were replaced by areas of cartilage (white arrows; T and X) and bone (red arrows; T and X). Boxed areas in A–D are shown in higher-magnification in E–H, respectively; boxed areas in I–L are shown in higher-magnification in M–P, respectively; and boxed areas in Q–T are shown in higher-magnification in U–X, respectively. n ≥ 3. Scale bar = 20 μm.