FIGURE 2.

Expression and location of AQP4 in edema after SCC. Panel (A) shows the anterior horn of spinal cord gray matter (T10). AQP4 immunoreaction was in the gray matter of the spinal cord, which was revealed to be brown, we can see AQP4 increased apparently in SCC, and reached the peak at 3 days post-SCC, then has a transitory decrease, but at 7 days post-SCC, it picked up a lot, and was restored to preoperative level, at 28 days post-SCC. (A: sham group, showed the AQP4 within normal level. Panels (B–I) showed the AQP4 at 6 h, 12 h, 1 day, 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, 14 days and 28 days post-SCC). (B) Immunofluorescence was used to detect the distribution of AQP4 in the spinal cord at 3 days after SCC. Panels (B-a–d) show that DAPI, AQP4 and GFAP merge in the gray matter of the spinal cord. Panels (B-e–h) show that DAPI, AQP4 and GFAP merge in the white matter of spinal cord. Panels (B-a,e) show that the nucleus of cells was labeled by DAPI (blue) in the spinal cord. Panels (B-b,f) show AQP4 immunoreaction products (red). Panels (B-c,g) show that little of the GFAP immunolabeling (green) was detected in the somata and neuritis of astrocyte. AQP4 immunoreaction products (red) in the spinal cord were labeled in the VEC of gray matter. Panels (B-d,h) co-localization of DAPI (blue), AQP4 (red) and GFAP (green) are shown in the injured spinal cord, where AQP4 surrounds the VEC and in the astrocytic processes in injured spinal cords. Bar = 100 μm. (C) The bands show the immunostaining of AQP4 and beta-actin by Western blotting. The density of the bands measured by ImageJ. Data were normalized to beta-actin. The expression of AQP4 protein was significantly increased compared sham group at 12 h, 1 day, 3 days and 7 days after SCC. ^∗P < 0.05 when compared to the sham group (n = 8).