Fig. 2

Expression of CCN2 in rat intravertebral discs (IVDs). a Western blot analysis of CCN2 protein in rat nucleus pulposus (NP) and annulus fibrosus (AF) cells. β-actin was used as a loading control. Immunoblots shown are representative of experiments with similar results (n = 8). The unpaired Student’s t test was used. b Immunohistological staining of CCN2 expression in sagittal sections from 11-week-old (mature) and 32-week-old (adult) rats. Rat kidney was used as positive control (PC). Scale bar = 20–500 μm (× 4–40 original magnification). c CCN2 negative (a) and positive (b) cells were immunohistochemically detected in rat NP cells. Cells stained brown are positive cells. The values are the number of CCN2-positive NP cells. The percentage of cells positive for CCN2 in NP cells was calculated from the staining (n = 12). The unpaired Student’s t test was used. Scale bar = 10 μm