Representative bright field images of H and E stained fungiform and circumvallate taste buds at Days 4, 7, 10 and 16 post-injection of saline, CYP or AMF/CYP-injected mice.

<p>(a) Images of fungiform taste buds. Morphologically intact taste buds with organized mass of taste cells (indicated by black arrow) are abundant in saline-injected (control) mice. There was a disruption in the organization of taste buds, seen as an absence of organized mass of taste cells (indicated by green arrow) in CYP-injected mice on day 4 which does not recover until day 16 post-injection. AMF/CYP-injected mice do not show this disruption except on day 7. (b) Trench of a circumvallate papilla with taste buds. The red-boxed area shows the region which is magnified to observe detailed morphology. (c) Images of circumvallate taste buds. There was no morphological change in the circumvallate taste buds of saline and AMF mice across days. However there were open-spaces (red arrow) inside the taste buds on days 7 and 10 in CYP-injected mice. AMF/CYP–injected mice showed such “open spaces” (red arrow) only on day 7. Scale bar = 25 µm.