Figure 2.
Inflammatory cytokine and catabolic enzyme expression in IVDs after disc stabbing surgery. Representative immunofluorescence staining for TNF-α (A), VEGF (D), MMP-13 (G) and Adamts-5 (J) in the discs of DDD and sham mice at 12 weeks post-surgery (bars=200μm for the integral discs, bars=20μm for magnified NP and AF areas). Quantitative analyses showed that TNF-α (B, C), VEGF (E, F), MMP-13 (H, J) and ADAMTS-5 (K, L) expression in the NP and AF in either DDD group mice was markedly increased compared with the respective sham group (n=5 per group), while there were no significant difference between both DDD groups of vegfr-1TK−/− and WT mice(***P< 0.001; ns, not significant).