Figure 2.

Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) in lungs of wildtype mice exposed to silica. (A) Representative sections of lung from mice of indicated strain 2 months (MRL) or 3 months (B6, BXSB, NZB) after instillation of silica or vehicle, stained with anti-B220 (B cells, red) and anti-CD3e (T cells, green), original magnification ×100. (B) Representative peribronchiolar (left) and perivascular (right) tertiary lymphoid structures (thick arrows), from the lung of an MRL mouse 1 month after silica exposure; b, bronchiole; v, vessel. The insets show the whole lung section, with the area of magnification outlined by the red box at the tip of the arrow. (C) Representative whole lung section scanned after staining with fluorescein-conjugated anti-mouse-CD19 (B cells, red) or anti-mouse-CD3e (T cells, green). The inset shows four TLS. TLS were counted and TLS area quantitated across the entire lung section. (D) TLS number per whole lung section; and (E) TLS area as percentage of area of whole lung section. For scatterplots each symbol represents an individual mouse; the median for each group is indicated by the bar; *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 for silica- vs. vehicle-exposed mice of same strain, Wilcoxon rank sum test.