Fig. 2

MAO-A and MAO-B levels after amphetamine. We pretreated mice with 5ECdsAP1 aptamer before amphetamine application according to Fig. 1d; we collected tissue samples (n = 4 per group) from the VTA at 90 (60 + 30 min Fig. 1d) and 180 (60 + 30 + 90 Fig. 1d) minutes after amphetamine. We obtained protein for Western blot quantitation of MAO-A (panel a) or MAO-B (panel b) level (upper molecular fragments) using Actin (lower molecular fragments) as a reference shown in lanes 2–4 (90 min samples) or lane 5–6 (180 min). Total protein (10 μg) was used for all lanes except lanes 7 & 9. The blot was stripped and used for MAO-B after MOA-A. Lane 1: molecular size marker of 10 KD ladder; lane 2: 5ECdsAP1 (4 nmol/kg, icv, half dose); lanes 3 & 5: saline (2 μl, icv); lanes 4 & 6: 5ECdsAP1 (8 nmol/kg, icv, full dose); lanes 7, 8, 9 are controls of naive mice (no aptamer or amphetamine (with increasing amount of protein: 5, 10 and 20 μg, respectively. Because we observed no change in MAO-B level (Panel b), we determined 90 min post amphetamine is the optimal time to collect VTA samples (panel a, lane 4) for quantitative comparison of the reversal of MAO-A level in the VTA tissue from mice treated with 5EC aptamers of dsAP1, ssAP1, dsNF-kB, saline (Sal), nothing (naïve), dsSP1, dsCREB, and dsRan (panel c). Aptamer 5ECdsAP1 elevated the MAO-A by 60–100 % (t test, shown as bar graphs in panel c). N = number of mice used in the test