Fig. 4
From: Azithromycin ameliorates sulfur dioxide-induced airway epithelial damage and inflammatory responses
AZM pre-treatment protects against epithelial shedding and increases lamellar body formation. a. Electron microscope images of the tracheal epithelium. SO2 exposed mice show shedding of the epithelium as seen when comparing SO2 +/−. Shedding is seen by the top of the layer peeling of and an uneven layer indicated by red arrows. Mice that had been pre-treated with AZM, but not exposed to SO2 showed accumulations of vesicles in the epithelial layer. SO2 exposed, AZM pre-treated mice also showed these vesicle formations, even to a greater extent, and the epithelial layer did not show shedding. All the epithelial layers presented some small vesicle formations, but the increases as a result of AZM treatment were distinct throughout all the samples. Yellow arrows point to examples of vesicle formations. Shown are representative images taken of 3 replicates. Top scale bars are 10 μm and lower scale bars are 2 μm. b. Electron microscope images of the alveolar region of the lungs. No discernible difference was seen in the control vs the SO2 exposed mice. Lamellar bodies were observed in most of the alveolar type II cells in all the samples. Only in the AZM pre-treated mouse samples were accumulations of lamellar bodies detected. Yellow arrows point to examples of lamellar bodies. Shown are representative images taken of 3 replicates. Top scale bars are 10 μm and lower scale bars are 2 μm