Skip to main content
Fig. 5 | Arthritis Research & Therapy

Fig. 5

From: Lymphatic endothelial cells efferent to inflamed joints produce iNOS and inhibit lymphatic vessel contraction and drainage in TNF-induced arthritis in mice

Fig. 5

Ferulic acid (FLA) rescues impaired lymphatic function in tumor necrosis factor–transgenic (TNF-Tg) mice. Three-month-old TNF-Tg mice (n = 8/group, comprising 4 females and 4 males) were treated with FLA (20 mg/kg by gavage daily for 12 weeks) or saline and were subjected to near-infrared indocyanine green imaging (NIR-ICG) imaging. a Chemical structure of FLA. b Representative ICG images show that FLA increased ICG removal from the ankle area (red circles) 24 h after ICG injection. c Quantitation of percentage of ICG clearance. Values are mean ± standard deviation (SD) of 16–20 affected legs. d Lymphatic pulses were measured at the region of interest, as shown in Fig. 4. Histogram shows that FLA restored lymphatic pulses in TNF-Tg mice. e Quantitation of lymphatic pulses/minute. Values are mean ± SD of 9–11 affected legs from 5–7 mice. *p < 0.05 vs. wild-type (WT) mice, # p < 0.05 vs. TNF-Tg mice. f Lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) were treated with TNF (as shown in Fig. 2c) with or without FLA for 24 h and then cocultured with lymphatic smooth muscle cells (LSMCs) for another 24 h. The expression levels of functional muscle genes were determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The fold changes were calculated using the saline-treated sample value as 1. Values are mean ± SD of three samples. g Nitric oxide (NO) levels in the conditioned medium of TNF-treated LECs with or without FLA were measured by a Griess method as in Fig. 2. Values are mean ± SD of three samples. *p < 0.05 vs. saline-treated group, # p < 0.05 vs. TNF-treated group. h1-Cal h1-calponin, mRNA messenger RNA, NF-κB2 nuclear factor κB2, SMα smooth muscle actin, sMYH smooth muscle myosin heavy chain

Back to article page