Figure 5.

Figure 5.

Changes in vascular distribution and morphology in response to spinal cord injury. (a) Schematic of the location of the SC injury in adult zebrafish. (b) Schematic of a contusion injury, using forceps to compress the SC between neural arches. (c–h) Wholemount SCs with labelled endothelial cells (Tg(kdrl:HRAS-mCherry)) in uninjured and 3, 7, 14, 30 and 90 dpi. Images are of different animals representative of each time-point. (i) Fold change in total vessel length relative to uninjured levels over time post-injury in different regions along the rostral-caudal axis, the dorsal–ventral axis and the left-right axis. (j) Average vessel length over time post-injury. (k) Average vessel tortuosity (vessel length/euclidean distance) over time post-injury. (l) Number of endothelial nuclei over time post-injury. The orange dashed line indicates the fold change in the number of nuclei relative to 1 dpi (right-side axis). (m) Swimming distance covered in an open field test from 1 day before injury to 90 dpi (green dashed line represents the mean value). (n,p) Longitudinal sections of transected SCs with labelled axons (anti-acetylated alpha-tubulin antibody), ECs (Tg(kdrl:HRAS-mCherry)), glial cells (Tg(gfap:GFP)) and nuclear DAPI staining, at 3 (n) and 5 dpi (p). n1–n4. Magnifications of box in (n) showing blood vessels, but not axons or glial cells, present in the injured region at 3 dpi. p1–p4. Magnifications of box in (p) showing axons adjacent to blood vessels (green arrowheads), glial projections (blue arrowheads) or alone (magenta arrowheads). (o,o′), (q,q′). SC region 2 mm caudally to the injury. Statistical tests: Kruskal–Wallis test followed by Dunn's multiple comparisons post hoc test relative to uninjured control (j,k,m) or between all conditions (l) (p-values > 0.05 in (l) are not shown).