GFAP expression in lumbar spinal cords from young and middle-aged naïve (YN and MN) or post-CCI day 7 animals (YCCI and MCCI).

<p>(A) Immunoblots of lumbar spinal cord extracts taken from naïve hemisections or 7 days post surgery that were probed with antibody against GFAP and loading control GAPDH (n = 3 per group). (B) GFAP immunofluorescence of dorsal horn astrocytes. Lumbar spinal cords were obtained from young and middle-aged naïve (YN and MN) or post-CCI day 7 animals (YCCI and MCCI), either ipsilateral (IPSL) or contralateral (CL) to injury. Optical sections (0.75 μm optical sections through 25 μm thick specimens) were acquired with a LSCM and 60x 1.4 NA objective lens, and the image stacks were then recombined and rendered in 3D. Scale bar = 20 μm