Microvascular destruction identifies murine allografts that cannot be rescued from airway fibrosis
J. Clin. Invest. Ashok N. Babu, et al. 117:3774 doi:10.1172/JCI32311 [Go to this article.]

Figure 2
Tracheal microvasculature is organized based on cartilaginous anatomy. (A) Following i.v. injection of FITC-conjugated (green) tomato lectin while still alive, naive animals were sacrificed and tracheae whole mounted to visualize the tracheal vasculature. (B) These same tracheae underwent immunostaining for CD31 (endothelial cell antigen) with a Cy3 (red) secondary antibody after excision to identify all vessels regardless of perfusion status. (C) Magnified image of vessels originating from the intercartilaginous vessels (D) that span the cartilage rings. (D) Transverse vessels carrying blood away from the midline to the intercartilaginous trachea to supply cartilage-spanning vessels in C. (E) Axial direction vessels in the midline membranous trachea, which appear to be major blood highway for trachea. (F) Schematic depiction of tracheal blood flow, which is color-coordinated with previous cutout images. (G) Cartoon version of image A demonstrating cartilage rings in light blue and intercartilaginous or membranous regions in dark gray. Original magnification, ×20.