Alexa fluor 488 anti mouse rat human foxp3

The mice were given water supplemented with 3% dextran sulfate sodium salt for 5 days. The water was then replaced with normal drinking water for 3 more days prior to the mice being sacrificed for tissue removal for histology. Flow cytometry was utilized to look at levels of FOXP3 expression within the CD4+ population. Intracellular staining procedures for FOXP3 were followed using the application notes from Alexa Fluor® 488 anti-mouse/rat/human FOXP3 (BioLegend). The mice were weighed every other day, and their colon lengths were determined during autopsy. The degree of colitis was quantified using three outcome variables: weight loss, colon histology, and a disease activity index. The disease activity index is an established clinical index of colitis severity encompassing clinical signs of colitis (wasting and hunching of the recipient mouse and the physical characteristics of stool) and an ordinal scale of colonic involvement (thickness and erythema) ^{12 (link)}. We adapted an existing histology damage score for the DSS colitis model ^{13 (link)}. This score assesses eight parameters, including extent of crypt loss, depth of erosions/ulcers and semi-quantitative assessment of inflammatory cells. We added one additional parameter: extent of re-epithelialization when erosions/ulcers were present/expressed as ratio of re-epithelialized ulcer to non-epithelialized ulcer.