FIGURE 8.

Chaperone protection against mutant htt toxicity in PC12 cells. A, transfection of mutant htt (N208-120Q) into PC12 cells (arrow) reduces nerve growth factor-induced neurite outgrowth (upper panel). Cells co-expressing BAG1 and mutant htt develop neurites (middle panel). Long neurites are also seen in triple transfected cells that expressed BAG1 (red), mutant htt (green), and Hsp70 (blue) (bottom panel). Arrows indicate transfected PC12 cells. Images for expression of normal htt (N208-23Q) or BAG1 alone and Hsp70 with mutant htt are presented in supplemental Fig. S1. B, quantitative assessment of PC12 cells with neurites longer than two cell bodies. The percentage of transfected PC12 cells showing long neurites was calculated for each group. The data are presented as mean ± S.E. and were obtained from three transfections. ^*, p < 0.05; ^**, p < 0.01 compared with mutant htt-transfected cells (120Q).