Figure 7

VB3323 treatment significantly improved the behavior performance in wobbler mice and reduced reactive astroglyosis. (A, B) Behavioral tests in wobbler mice treated with vehicle (solid line), riluzole (dotted line) or VB3323 (broken line). Riluzole was given in drinking water at the dose of 40 mg/kg/d; VB3323 was administered intraperitoneally three times a week at the dose of 5 mg/kg/d. The treatments were carried out from the 4th to the 10th week of age. Each point represents the mean ± standard error of the mean of 10 mice. Statistical analysis for VB3323-treated wobbler mice: **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, different from vehicle-treated wobbler mice; °p < 0.05, °°°p < 0.001, different from riluzole-treated wobbler mice. Riluzole-treated wobbler mice: ^∧p < 0.05, ^∧∧p < 0.01, ^∧∧∧p < 0.001 different from vehicle-treated wobbler mice (Bonferroni posttest). (C-F) Representative images showing the Nissl-positive stained large neurons from the ventral horn of cervical spinal cord of 10-wk-old healthy mice (C), and age-matched vehicle-treated wobbler mice (D), riluzole-treated wobbler mice (E) and VB3323-treated wobbler mice (F); high magnified (1,000×) neuronal cell bodies are reported in the lower panel for each treatment. (G-J) Colocalization experiments showing the profile of immunoreactivity for GFAP (red), TNF-α (green) and their merge (yellow) from the ventral horn of cervical spinal cord of 10-wk-old healthy mice (G) and age-matched vehicle-treated wobbler mice (H), in riluzole-treated wobbler mice (I) and in VB3323-treated wobbler mice (J). (K-N) Colocalization experiments showing the profile of immunoreactivity for CD11b (blue), TNF-α (green) and their merge (light green) from the ventral horn of cervical spinal cord of 10-wk-old healthy mice (K), and age-matched vehicle-treated wobbler mice (L), in riluzole-treated wobbler mice (M) and in VB3323-treated wobbler mice (N). Scale bar (C-F, upper panels), 45 nm; scale bar (C-F, lower panels), 10 µm; scale bar (G-N), 60 µm.