Fig. 5
From: Dexamethasone induces apoptosis in pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells
Dexamethasone reduced nuclear p65 expression in lung vascular cells of rats with monocrotaline (MCT)-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH). Rats with MCT-induced PH were treated with dexamethasone (Dex, 5 mg/kg/day) from day 14–28. Immunohistochemical staining for p65 (brown) was performed on lung sections from rats from untreated controls at day 28 (a) showing p65-ve cells (unfilled arrow). (b) p65 + ve cells (filled black arrow) were observed in MCT treated rats at day 28. In contrast, p65-ve cells (unfilled arrow) were seen in dexamethasone-treated MCT-exposed rats (c). An antibody-negative control is shown in slide d. Magnification × 200. Blinded morphometric scoring showed that MCT increased the percentage of total nuclear p65-positive cells in PASMC (e) and endothelial cells (f). This was reduced in all dexamethasone-treated groups in a dose-dependent manner. Results represent mean ± SEM of n = 5 per group, compared using Kruskal Wallis and Dunn’s post-test. *p < 0.01, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001