Fig. 4

Tofacitinib effects on the in vivo model of experimental arthritis. (A) Representative image of the paw of control mice and CIA mice, treated with and without tofacitinib. (B) The histogram showed the median and the range of the paw thickness (mm) of the mice. The collagen induced a significant increase of paw thickness when compared to the control group, and 30 mg/kg/day of tofacitinib prevented the increase of paw thickness (*p ≤ 0.03; **p = 0.007; ***p = 0.0001). C–F Representative image of haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining of synovial tissues from knee joints derived from control mice (C), control mice treated with tofacitinib (D), CIA mice (E) and CIA mice treated with tofacitin (F). The micro-vessels are highlighted by *. Original magnification 5×. G–J Non-consecutive representative image of vWF staining of synovial tissues from knee joints derived from control mice (G), control mice treated with tofacitinib (H), CIA mice (I) and CIA mice treated with tofacitin (J). The pictures showed the staining of vWF, used for micro-vessels staining (arrows). Original magnification 20×. (K) Quantification of the number of vessels expressing vWF+. The treatment of CIA mice with tofacitinib significantly reduced the vessel density in synovial tissues of joints, when compared to CIA that did not receive tofacitinib. The histograms showed the median and range of each synovial tissue (*p < 0.04; **p = 0.009)