Naphthalene as a model to study repair processes of the murine tracheal epithelium in vivo

The naphthalene model of damage and repair of the small intrapulmonary airway epithelium is well established. We aimed to determine if naphthalene can also be used to study repair processes in murine tracheal epithelium. Explanted mouse tracheae were kept in Hepes-Ringer solution at 37°C and were incubated with naphthalene (200µg/ml) for 2h. In mice, a dose of 300mg/kg naphthalene or vehicle was injected intraperitoneally. Tracheae were explanted and fixed at 12h, 24h, 48h, 60h, 72h, 4d, 5d, 6d and 15d and examined using semi-thin sections, scanning electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, real-time RT-PCR and…