Fig. 3. Polarized mouse macrophages express a suite of proteases.

a Basement membrane laminin immunofluorescence following culture with mouse macrophages for 6 days in the presence of media alone, LPS (1 µg/mL), or recombinant mouse IL-4 (20 ng/mL). Images shown are representative of three independent experiments. b 3D, en face and orthogonal images of a multinucleated giant cell formed atop basement membrane explants in response to IL-4. Results representative of two independent experiments performed. c Quantification of basement membrane area degraded and basement membrane perforation size as analyzed by ImageJ pixel analysis of each condition from a. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM (n = 3 independent experiments) with significance determined by two-tailed t test. d Transcript expression for two biological replicates of mouse macrophages left unstimulated, polarized with LPS (1 µg/mL), or polarized with recombinant mouse IL-4 (20 ng/mL) for 24 h. Relative mRNA expression levels of mouse-specific immune response genes (d), proteases or protease receptor with an absolute gene expression value of at least 2⁴ (e), and the relative expression of those proteases/receptor in response to LPS or IL-4 (f) are presented. d, f are on a log₂ scale. Results are presented as the mean of two independent experiments. Source data are provided as a Source data file.