Figure 8
Images of macrophages on the parietal pleura 1 week post pleural instillation of AgNW 5 and AgNW 10 . Lesion area showing AgNW5 (A) dissolving inside macrophages, as can be seen by the loss of fibre structure (black arrow) (B). Intact nanofibres on the mesothelial cell layer as indicated by the white arrow (B) and membrane bound as indicated by the star (B,C). D) Lesion area appears denser and more granulomatous after 1 week treatment AgNW10 and occasional nanowires can be seen in these granulomatous areas as indicated by the white cross. Surprisingly, a large part of the nanowires were seen on and within the mesothelial cell layer indicated by the triangle. These nanowires appeared structurally intact whereas nanowires fully phagocytosed by macrophages as seen in E) indicated by the cross on the right side start to dissolve under the acidic condition within a macrophage. On the top left of this image, a fibre is partly internalised (star) and partly exposed (white arrow). F) AgNW10 which is partly membrane bound on the mesothelial cell layer.