Skip to main content
. 2008 Feb 4;105(6):2169–2174. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0711647105

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4.

Bcl-xL increases the number of mitochondria per unit length of axon and their colocalization to presynaptic sites. (A) Fluorescence microscopy of transfected axons in hippocampal cultures stained with MitoTracker Red. Neurons were either transfected as indicated or treated with ABT-737 (DIV5 for both). White dots beside the axon images show the axon trajectories. The number of MitoTracker-stained mitochondria per 6 μm of axon (mean ± SEM) was quantified for both control and ABT-737 (n = 6 neurons per group) and for GFP-Bcl-xL (n = 5 in each of three independent experiments for a total of 15 neurons). *, P < 0.05; ***, P < 0.001. (B) Representative electron micrographs of synaptic profiles identified by a synaptic density between neurons (DIV13) expressing GFP only or GFP-Bcl-xL. Data are quantified in C–E. V, vesicles; SD, synaptic density; M, mitochondrion. (Scale bars: 500 nm.) (C) Percentage of synaptic profiles containing a mitochondrion. (D) Number of vesicles per synaptic profile. (E) The number of vesicles per synaptic profile was greater if a mitochondrion was present and if the neuron expressed GFP-BclxL. *, P < 0.05; ***, P < 0.001.