Figure 6.

Neutrophil infiltration depends on ICAM-1 in the cochlea, and ICAM-1 expression is lower in the stria vascularis than in the spiral ligament. The in vivo blockade of the ICAM-1 ligands (LFA-1 and Mac-1) decreases neutrophil infiltration in the cochlea after LPS inoculation. (A) Flow cytometry analysis showed a statistically significant difference in the number of neutrophils (Ly6G+, CD11b+) in the cochlea with LPS without blocking and LPS with anti-Mac-1 antibody treatment in vivo. (B) The fold change in mRNA expression at 1 day after LPS injection compared to basal conditions analyzed by qPCR. Notably, ICAM-1 mRNA expression was not increased in the stria vascularis, although IL-1β mRNA expression was increased. (C) Western blot analysis using anti-ICAM-1 antibody. Beta-actin was blotted on the same membrane after stripping. An representative image of Western blot was shown from three independent experiments. Six cochleae from three mice were pooled for each group per experiment. (D) Western blot was quantified by the intensity of ICAM-1 band normalized by the beta-actin band. Relative expression was compared to 'SV Ctr' (untreated group) lane. SL, spiral ligament. SV, stria vascularis (** denotes P-value < 0.005, in post-hoc analysis after ANOVA).