Photographs showing the cavities and cyst formation after T8 spinal cord transection.

<p>Longitudinal spinal cord sections from the control (A, D), 50 U (B, E) and 100 U (C, F) ChABC-treated groups were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) at 4 (A-C) and 10 (D-F) weeks after spinal cord injury. In the control group, many cavities and cysts (holes filled with hematoxylin-positive cells) had obviously appeared in the rostral and distal stump near the lesion site at 4 weeks after injury (A). Subsequently, the shrinking spinal cord tissue created additional cavities and cysts around the lesion site that became larger and farther from the spinal stumps at 10 weeks after injury (D). In ChABC-treated groups, cysts with hematoxylin-positive cells were also exhibited around the epicenter of the lesion site after treatment with 50 U (B) or 100 U ChABC (C), but fewer cavities had formed and extended at 4 weeks after spinal cord injury. In the 50 U (E) and 100 U (F) ChABC-treated groups, cysts also formed around the lesion site and extended a shorter distance from the spinal stumps compared to the control group at 10 weeks after SCI. The histograms represent measurements of the cavities' length between the rostral and caudal edges of the cavities (G) and the lesion area (H) in the spinal cord. The histograms show that treatment with 50 U and 100 U ChABC significantly decreased the length of the cavities compared to the control group at 4 and 10 weeks after spinal cord injury, but there was no significant difference between the ChABC-treated groups (n = 4 per group; **<i>p</i><0.01, one-way ANOVA, Tukey’s post hoc test). The error bars denote the SEM.