Research Article
T Cell-Derived IL-17A Induces Vascular Dysfunction via Perivascular Fibrosis Formation and Dysregulation of ⋅NO/cGMP Signaling
Figure 4
IL-17A induced perivascular fibrosis in CD4-IL-17Aind/+ mice and increased fibroblast migration and proliferation. (a) Combined Masson’s trichrome–Verhoeff’s elastica (MTC-VES) staining (a1) and Sirius red staining (a2) of aortic rings of CD4-IL-17Aind/+ and control mice. Representative pictures are shown; scale bar for both . a3: quantification of aortic wall thickness and thickness of collagen-positive area in adventitia are shown. Thickness was measured at 10 different points per section with ImageJ software; ; unpaired Student’s -test. (b) Aortic sprouting assay of CD4-IL-17Aind/+ and control mice. b1: representative image of aortic rings on Matrigel covered plates at 5x magnification. Quantification of sprout length (b2) and number of sprouts (b3); . (c) Aortic ring staining after sprouting assay of CD4-IL-17Aind/+ and control mice. Aortic rings were stained for DAPI (blue), α-smooth muscle cell actin (αSMa, yellow), fibroblast-specific protein 1 (FSP1, green), and CD31 (red); . A representative image per group is shown; . (d) MTT analysis of fibroblasts and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) cultivated with different concentrations of IL-17A; ; one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post-hoc test. Data are presented as .
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