FIG. 8.

Antioxidant NAC restored high-glucose–impaired PI 3-kinase/Akt pathway in cultured porcine corneas. Porcine corneas with 5-mm diameter epithelial wounds were cultured in MEM containing normal glucose (NG) and in high glucose (HG) in the presence of HB-EGF (HB) with (HB+N) or without NAC for 48 h. Epithelial cells from two representative corneas per group (n = 6) were collected by scraping cells off of the cultured corneas and lysed at the end of the culture. Equal amounts of cell lysate were immunoblotted with antibodies against tyrosine-phosphorylated Akt or ERK1/2. The same membranes were stripped off the immunoreactivities and reprobed with Akt or ERK2, respectively, for equal protein loading.