Thus, we treated CD2-IL-5 mice with 10 μg rIL-18 plus 100 μl saline or 100 μl saline alone intravenously five times on alternate days for 10 days and examined eosinophils accumulation in the esophagus of mice. The anti-MBP immunostaining of esophageal tissue sections showed many intraepithelial eosinophilia and extracellular eosinophilic granules following degranulation in rIL-18-injected CD2-IL-5 mice compared to saline-challenged CD2-IL-5 mice that showed mostly lamina propria eosinophils (Fig. 3d, i–ii). This evidence concerns the gene MBP and Increased total eosinophil count.