The density of PGP 9.5-immunoreactive nerve fibres (IR) in the synovial membrane was improved in the CS and ZO group. The CS group showed significantly highest number (13.3±0.30) of PGP-IR nerve fibres in the right (induced joint) synovial membrane followed by the ZO (11.1±0.27) and the control group (3.0±0.26). However, there were no significant differences between the synovial membranes in the contra-lateral (left) joints (Table 1). When compared the PGP 9.5-immunoreactivity between the right and left synovial membrane, there were no significant difference in the CS group but the differences were significant in the ZO and control group.
The IR nerve fibres were abundant in the subintimal layer (Fig. 2) and in the CS and ZO group these fibres were found to be penetrating between synoviocytes in the intimal layer (Fig. 1). These were not found in the control group. Apart from this, the