Figure 6

The cleavage of GFAP in the hippocampus of KA-icv-injected mice is caspase 3 dependent. (a) CD-1 mice received KA-icv-injections and were sacrificed at day 1, 3, 5, and 7 post KA-injection. For control, the mice were sacrificed at day 7 post vehicle-injection (veh). Hippocampus was removed and homogenized, and the lysates were analyzed by immunoblotting. The top part shows a representative immunoblot of the full length GFAP (52 kD) and its proteolytic fragments (45 and 40 kD). β-actin was used as internal standard. The bottom panel shows the level of total GFAP protein (black columns), 45 kDa-fragment (gray columns) and 40 kDa-fragment (white columns) relative to the level of 52-kD GFAP in vehicle treated mice (veh). The results are the mean ± S.D. from five independent experiments. Significant differences between the control (veh) and the KA injection are indicated by *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001. (b) ICR mice received KA-icv-injections alone or co-injection of KA and caspase 3 inhibitor (Cas3I) or vehicle (veh), and were sacrificed at day 3 and 7 post KA-injection. Hippocampal lysates were analyzed by immunoblotting. The top panel shows a representative immunoblot of GFAP and its fragments. β-actin was used as internal standard. The bottom panel shows the level of the 40 kD fragment at day 3 and 7 post KA-injection relative to the level of 40-kD GFAP in the control (veh). The results are the mean ± S.D. from three independent experiments. Significant differences between the mice treated with and without caspase 3 inhibitor are indicated by ***, P < 0.001.