Figure 2.
Effects of cocaine and gp120 exposure on caspase-3 activation in rat neurons. (A) Primary neurons treated with cocaine and/or gp120 for 24 h were monitored for caspase-3 activity assay in cell lysates. All data in these figures are presented as mean ± SD of four individual experiments. *P<.05; ***P<.001 versus control group; #P<.05 versus gp120 group; ^P<.05 versus cocaine group. (B) Primary neurons treated with cocaine and/or gp120 for 24 h were monitored for active caspase-3 by immunostaining using anti-cleaved caspase-3 anti-body. Immunocytochemical images showing active caspase-3 staining (left panel) and differential interference contrast (DIC; right panel) were captured using Nikon inverted fluorescence microscope TE02000-E. (C) Quantification of caspase-3-positive cells as percentage of control untreated cells using NIH ImageJ software. All the data are presented as mean ± SD of four individual experiments. *P<.05 versus control group; #P<.05 versus gp120 group; ^P<.05 versus cocaine group.