Fig. 7
From: Physiological and immunological responses to Culicoides sonorensis blood-feeding: a murine model
Mast cell activation critical for innate immune response to Culicoides sonorensis midge feeding. Ten-week-old (a) wild type mast cell-sufficient (WBB6F1-+/+), (b) mast cell-deficient (WBB6F1-W/Wv) and (c) mass cell-reconstituted (WBB6F1-W/Wv -R) mice 3 h post-exposure to feeding C. sonorensis. Midge bites (circles), areas of extensive subcutaneous hemorrhaging (black arrowheads) and vasodilated dermal capillaries (white arrows) are shown most prominently in both the wild type +/+ and CTMC reconstituted W/Wv-R mice. H&E staining of micro-thin sections of abdominal skin showing extensive erythrocytes released in the dermis and hypodermis of wild type +/+ mice (d) compared to deficient W/Wv (e) mice. f Manual counts of fed C. sonorensis females (fully vs partially) between wild type mast cell-sufficient (+/+), mast cell-deficient (W/Wv), and CTMC-reconstituted (W/WV-R) mouse groups. (Magnifications: a-c 100×, scale-bars: 100 μm; d and e 200×, scale-bars: 50 μm). (****P < 0.0001; multiple t-tests with two-stage linear step-up procedure [41])