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Figure 3 Immunohistochemistry for re-endothelialization (A) and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) expression (B) from a representative animal. Top (x40): (a) percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) plus 17ß-estradiol, (b) PTCA alone and (c) PTCA plus vehicle. Lower: portions of the cross sections are shown under high-power (x1,000, d to f, respectively) to highlight positive-staining luminal border. The length of positive staining in the high-power image is indicated by "RE" and "EN" immediately above each image, with the total luminal length in the image (T) shown above. This analysis was applied to the entire luminal surface, with percentage of re-endothelialization (RE) calculated as
RE/
T, where
RE and
T are the sums of re-endothelialized segment and total luminal lengths in each image. The extent of re-endothelialization for the cross section is greater in (a) (90%) than it is in (b) (65.8%) and (c) (66.1). Similar analysis was performed for percentage of eNOS expression (EN).