Fig. 2.

Meprins are expressed in healing murine wounds and their absence does not alter the speed of macroscopic wound closure. A, 3- and 7-day-old dorsal skin wounds from WT mice stained for meprin α and meprin β. Drawn white line indicates epidermal tongue and arrows show meprin positivity in granulation tissue. Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bar = 50 μm. B, Photographs of the same wounds in WT, Mep1a^−/−, Mep1b^−/−, and combined Mep1a^−/−/Mep1b^−/− 3, 7 and 11 days after wounding. C, Graph showing macroscopic wound closure for a total of 18 wounds per genotype. Values represent mean ± S.D. D, The quantification shows the days after wounding until re-leveling of the raised wound to the level of the surrounding unwounded skin occurred. Individual values for individual wounds (n = 4–15), mean ± S.D. are shown, **P < 0.01 as analyzed by one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s correction. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)