Fig. 5

NOS2 deficiency exacerbates the chronic phase (day 30 p.i.) demyelination. 5 µm thick transverse- sections of RSA59 infected (10,000 PFUs) WT and NOS2-/- mice spinal cords were stained for the presence of inflammatory lesions by H & E (A), and demyelination by LFB (B). Black arrows in (A) indicate the regions with myelitis. Regions with black outlined boxes are shown in insets. Blue arrows in (B) indicate the demyelinating plaques. Scale bar 200 µm. (C) is the quantification of percent demyelination. (n = 5 to 7 and the dots represent all the sections from all the spinal cords. 1 to 6 sections corresponding to different regions of the spinal cord were analysed). *Asterisk represents statistical significance calculated between infected WT and infected NOS2-/- mice using unpaired student’s t test with Welch’s correction. **p value < 0.01. Confocal photomicrographs of demyelinating plaques are represented in (C) through (D). 5 μm thick transverse spinal cord sections from infected WT and NOS2-/- mice were double immunolabelled for MBP (green) with Iba1 (red) and PLP (green) with Iba1 (red) and counterstained with DAPI (blue). Insets highlight areas that show engulfment of MBP or PLP by Iba1 + MG/Mφ. Scale bar 10 μm