Figure 4.

βgal and αSMA positively stained bronchial epithelial cells in the α-SMA-Cre R26R mice treated with BLM. βgal stained lung sections of α-SMA-Cre/R26R mice without and with BLM treatment (a-c). The section from BLM treated mice showed a few βgal stained bronchial epithelial cells (arrowheads in b and c), but not from PBS treated mice (a). Double immunofluorescent staining for α-SMA and E-Cadherin was performed on the sections from PBS (d-f) or BLM (g-i) treated mice. d, g: FITC-labeled E-cadherin; e, h: TRITC labeled α-SMA. Positive double immunofluorescent staining (g, h, i) was observed in the bronchial epithelial cells lining the bronchioles of the BLM-treated lung where βgal staining was detected as above, but not in the control (d, e, f). The images of (d) and (e), or (g) and (h) were merged into (f) and (i). The red fluorescence (h arrowhead) indicated the positive α-SMA staining and yellow fluorescent staining (i arrowhead) indicated that the epithelial cells positively co-stained with α-SMA and E-Cadherin. (all images are 400× magnification).