Fig. 7.

Increased CGRP-positive nerve fibers in bladder of mice developmentally exposed to PCBs at 6 mg/kg vs 0.1 mg/kg. Mice were exposed to PCBs via the maternal diet throughout gestation and lactation and bladders collected from male and female offspring at postnatal day (P) 28–31 for immunohistochemistry. Representative images of (A) male and (B) female mouse bladders from each PCB dose group incubated with antibodies targeting calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP, red) to label afferent sensory nerve fibers, e-cadherin (CDH1, green) to label all epithelium and DAPI (blue) to stain nuclei. Quantification of (C-D) the percent area within 10 µm of the epithelium with CGRP-positive nerve fibers, (E-F) percent area stroma with CGRP-positive nerve fibers. Results are mean ± SEM, n = 4–6 bladders per group. (D, E, F) One-way ANOVA or (C) Kruskal-Wallis test were used to determine significant differences. (C) Bar and * indicate significant differences as determined using Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn’s multiple comparisons tests, p < 0.05. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)