Fig. 3

Danshen injection ameliorated morphological abnormalities of penile tissue in diabetic rats. a The morphology of penile tissue in normal rats exhibited a large, intact architecture of the corpus cavernous tissue, which is indicated by the dotted lines (i). There was significant shrinkage of the corpus cavernous body in the diabetes group (ii); however, the area of the corpus cavernous body was increased by Danshen injection (0.5 or 1 mL/kg) treatment (iii and iv). Scale bar: 200 μm. b Data represent the means ± S.E.M. for 10 sections of five rats per group. c Significant alterations of vessels (sinusoid) and smooth muscle cells in the corpus cavernous. The density of vessels, which are highlighted by the dotted lines, was surrounded by endothelial cells (indicated by the white arrow); and the number of smooth muscle cells (indicated by the black arrow) in the control group (i) was higher than that in the diabetes group (ii). Danshen injection (0.5 or 1 mL/kg) could rescue the reduction of vessel and smooth muscle cell density (iii, iv). The inset in each picture (Scale bar: 200 μm) is enlarged and displayed on the right (Scale bar: 50 μm). d, e Bar graphs represent the quantitative difference in the density of vessels (sinusoid) and smooth muscle cells. Data represent the means ± S.E.M. for 10 sections of five rats per group. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001