Mast cell activation contributes to hypoxia/reoxygenation-induced pain in SCA. (A-C) HbAA- and HbSS-BERK mice were treated with saline (Veh) or imatinib (imat) for 5 days. All mice were then treated with 3 hours hypoxia and 1 hour reoxygenation (H/R). Pain measures were obtained before starting the drug treatments on day 0 (D₀), at the conclusion of drug treatments, D₅ before inciting H/R, immediately after H/R, and 24 hours after H/R as indicated by red arrows in the schema in (G). Measures of deep pain (A), mechanical hyperalgesia (B), and thermal sensitivity (C) are shown. ¶P < .05, ¶¶P < .001 versus D₀ of matched treatment; #P < .05, ##P < .001 vs D₅ pre-H/R of matched treatment; *P < .05, **P < .01 versus HbSS Veh (ANOVA, with Bonferroni). Each value is the mean ± SEM from 6 mice with 3 observations per mouse. (D-F) Pain-related behaviors from age-matched HbSS-BERK and HbSS-KitW/Wv (HbSS-W/Wv) mice before (baseline, BL), immediately after (Post H/R), and 1 day post-H/R. *P < .05, **P < .01, ***P < .001 vs HbSS-BERK of matched pain-testing time point; #P < .05 vs HbSS-BERK BL; ¶P < .05 vs HbSS-W/Wv BL (Student t test). Each value is the mean ± SEM of 5 mice.