Figure 1

Aberrant mechanical stress reduces the disc height. (a) Study design of the project. (b) Lumbar spine instability (LSI) mouse model. Mouse L3-L5 spinous processes were resected along with the supraspinous and interspinous ligaments (red dotted line in Sham group) to induce instability of lumbar spine. (c) Coronal μCT of the lumbar spine. The images were obtained by using CTVol v2.0 software. The yellow line represents the distance between the middle to middle or side to side of the adjacent vertebra. (d) Intervertebral L4-L5 disc height and bone histomorphometry (BS/TV, Tb.N, Tb.Sp) of L5 vertebral body were analyzed at 1-, 2-, 4-, and 8-week (W) post-surgery. Data are shown as mean ± sem. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 compared to Sham group.