Fig. 2.

Time course of spectrin breakdown products after the 2-, 4- and 6-hour exposures to propofol in the cortex and thalamus of P7 rats. Whole-cell extracts were used to detect the presence of the 280-kDa intact spectrin protein; calpain produced a 145-kDa fragment and caspase-3 produced a 120-kDa fragment in the cortex (a) and the thalamus (b). Bars represent a quantitative densitometric evaluation of the 145-kDa spectrin fragment in the cortex (c) and the thalamus (d), and the 120-kDa spectrin fragment in the cortex (e) and the thalamus (f). Results are presented for animals at different recovery time points (0, 4, 16 and 24 h) after exposure to propofol for 2, 4 and 6 h. Representative immunoblots of the 4-hour treatment are shown. β-Actin was run as an internal standard for equal loading. The results are the means ± SEM. ^a p < 0.05 vs. control value presented as a black line, ^b p < 0.05 between treatments.