Fig. 5. Enhanced Rit2 expression in the mouse midbrain counteracts aSyn-dependent deficits and DA neuron loss.

a Overexpression of A53T-aSyn increases the number of ipsilateral rotations and co-injection with AAV-Rit2 or injection of AAV-Rit2 alone increases the number of contralateral rotations. b Overexpression of Rit2 alone or with aSyn significantly increases horizontal activity in the open field (n^GFP = 7, n^aSyn = 9, n^{aSyn + RIT2} = 8, n^RIT2 = 6 for behavioral tests). c IHC for TH was used to count dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain. d Overexpression of A53T-aSyn alone induces a significant loss of DA neurons, which is attenuated by co-injection of AAV-Rit2. e A53T-aSyn overexpression tends to reduce the number of NeuN+ cells in the ipsilateral SNc and concomitant overexpression of Rit2 significantly preserves NeuN+ cells (5 animals/group). f IHC for TH was used to measure the density of DA projections in the striatum. g Overexpression of A53T-aSyn decreases the number of TH+ axons in the striatum, which is attenuated by the co-injection of AAV-Rit2 (n = 5/group for IHC experiments). Data represented as mean ± SEM, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001, one-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc test. Scale bar = 500 um.