Figure 4.

Decreased C48/80-induced mast cell degranulation in mouse skin with ssON treatment. Skin biopsies were taken from mice 1 h post-treatment at the injection site, and then stained with Toluidine Blue. Each sample was graded for mast cell degranulation and given a score using a scale from 0 to 4: a score of 0 was given for intact mast cells; 1, for mostly intact; 2, for mild degranulation; 3, for moderate degranulation; and 4, for heavy degranulation. (A) Representative histological sections and (B) the average scores are shown for each treatment group. An average score of 3.0 was determined for C48/80 (10 μg) treatment, a score of 0.9 was determined for the combination treatment of C48/80 and ssON (10 and 25 μg, respectively), and a score of 0.8 was determined for saline treatment. Left panels, magnification at 40X; right panels, magnification 63X. All scale bars represent 10 μm. Red arrows point to degranulation events. N=6 for each group. Statistical significance was assessed by non-parametric Mann-Whitney test. P-value: **P < 0.01, ns, non-significant. Data is shown as mean ± SEM.