Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 19 pp 7692—7717

Figure 8. Increased numbers of macrophages expressing NOX2 in fibrotic lungs. C57L, C57BL6/J and C3H/HeN mice were exposed to 5 daily fractions of 6 Gy (5x6 Gy) of thoracic irradiation. (A) At 15 weeks after radiation, samples of frozen lung tissue were collected and dihydroethidium (DHE) oxidation was assessed. The level of cellular superoxide anion was quantified as the percentage of DHE-positive cell in each HPF (20x) region. (B) The expression of NOX2 was examined by QPCR and immunohistochemical assays (NOX2: brown, Nucleus: blue) in mouse lungs from the three strains 15 weeks after irradiation. (C) NOX2 expressing cells in lung were identified as a macrophage with co-labeling for F4/80. Columns: mean, error bars: +SD, ^*p<0.05 for comparison to each lung with 0 Gy. ^§p<0.05 for comparison to C57L lungs exposed to 5x6 Gy by ANOVA with Tukey’s correction.