Osteopontin Impacts West Nile virus Pathogenesis and Resistance by Regulating Inflammasome Components and Cell Death in the Central Nervous System at Early Time Points

Figure 8

Immunohistochemical detection of apoptotic markers in WT and OPN KO mice infected with WNV. Representative sections of caudate obtained from WT and OPN KO animals showing the apoptosis marker TUNEL (a), (b), (c), (d). Representative serial sections of cerebellum obtained from WT and OPN KO mice, showing the effector caspase 3 (e), (f), (g), (h), Fas (CD95) expression (i), (j), (k), (l), and the microglia marker Iba-1 (m), (n), (o), (p). Markers were examined in uninfected WT (a), (e), (i), (m), infected WT brains at 5 dpi (b), (f), (j), (n), uninfected OPN KO (c), (g), (k), (o), and infected OPN KO brains at 5 dpi (d), (h), (l), (p). The intensity of the positive staining was calculated in thresholded whole brain images and normalized to the total brain area in ImageJ. Normalized density intensity of (q) TUNEL, (r) caspase 3, and (s) Fas (CD95). The values correspond to the average ± SEM of 6 animals/group. in ANOVA comparisons followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc tests.