Fig. 2. Delayed wound re-epithelialization in N17Rac1 transgenic mice. (a) Schematic representation of wound re-epithelialization. Epidermis, wound edge epidermis; neo-epidermis, newly formed epidermis after wounding (green). Yellow arrow and black perpendicular line indicate the wound margin. Black arrow indicates the front of the epithelial tongue (neo-epidermis). (b-e) Micrographs of H-E-stained sections of wound-edge samples. Samples were taken from (b,d) wild-type (wt) mice or (c,e) N17Rac1 trangenic (tg) mice (b,c) 2 days and (d,e) 5 days after wounding. Yellow arrows indicate wound margin. Black arrows indicate the front of the neo-epidermis. (f,g) Results of histomorphometric analysis of (f) `length' (length of the epithelial tongue starting from the wound edge to the tip of the tongue) and (g) `area' (area covered by the neo-epidermis) in wounds of wt and N17Rac1 tg mice. Blue bars give the mean ± s.d. of results obtained from seven wt and seven tg mice 2 days after wounding. Red bars give the mean ± s.d. of results from eight wt and ten tg mice 5 days after wounding. Bar, 200 µm. ^*P<0.05; ^***P<0.001.