Figure 1. Decreased senescent cells in young Aire-deficient mice.

(A) Senescence-associated β-galactosidase (β-gal) was stained in thymic frozen slices from 6-week-old mice. Scale bars: 50μm. Representative images from three independent experiments are shown. (B) The number of β-gal⁺ senescent cells (blue) in 10 randomly chosen sections were counted using Image J. The statistical data are shown as average β-gal⁺ spots/mm²±SD (n=3 pairs). Statistical differences between groups were determined by the Student’s t test. **p < 0.01.