Figure 11.

Effects of VX-765 on histopathology and behavior after SCI at 42 days post-injury.

(A, B) Hematoxylin-eosin (A) and Luxol fast blue (B) staining in the injury epicenter. In hematoxylin-eosin-stained sections (A), the color of the fibrotic area was notably darker than in other areas. There was no fibrotic area in the sham-injured spinal cord. There were marked fibrotic areas in the injured spinal cords, and the fibrotic area of the VX-765 group was smaller than that of the DMSO group. For Luxol fast blue staining (B), blue represents myelinated areas. Although the myelinated areas decreased markedly after SCI, the myelinated area of the VX-765 group was larger than that of the DMSO group. (C, D) Quantitative analysis of the fibrotic area (C) and residual myelination (D). (E) Nissl-stained cross-section, 0.5 mm rostral to the epicenter. Although Nissl-stained neurons were observed in all groups, the number of neurons decreased markedly after SCI, and the neurons were increased in the VX-765 group compared with the DMSO group. Scale bars: 0.5 mm. (F) Quantitative analysis of the residual ventral horn motoneurons. (G) BMS scores. All data are represented as the mean ± SD (n = 10). The original data for C, D, F, and G are shown in Additional file 11. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 (repeated measures two-way analysis of variance followed by Bonferroni’s post hocanalysis). BMS: Basso Mouse Scale; DMSO: dimethyl sulfoxide; dpi: day(s) post-injury; SCI: spinal cord injury; VX-765: caspase-1 selective inhibitor.