Figure 7.

p75ntr antisense inhibits the loss and vacuolation of Purkinje neurons. Purkinje neurons maintained in various conditions were fixed and stained with antibodies to calbindin-D28k. A, Quantitation of the effects p75ntr antisense (AS) and missense (MS) oligonucleotides (oligo) on Purkinje neuron numbers expressed as the percentage of the appropriate control demonstrates that p75ntr antisense completely blocks the loss of Purkinje neurons induced by trophic factor withdrawal, whereas missense oligos had no effect on Purkinje survival. Numbers are mean ± SEM values of at least three independent experiments, each performed in triplicate. B, The effects of the various treatments on vacuole size were quantified by measuring the diameters of all visible lysosensor blue-positive vacuoles in 6-12 Purkinje neurons per treatment condition in at least three independent experiments. Usually, the total number of vacuoles measured per condition was between 100 and 200. The size distribution was graphed as a percentage of total vacuoles that were within the indicated size ranges. ^**, ^*Significant difference from 25K+S (^**p < 0.01; ^*p < 0.05). ^‡‡,‡Significant difference from 5K-S (^‡‡p < 0.01; ^‡p < 0.05).