Figure 5. Reactive astrogliosis in the brain of 4-week-old Bmi-1^−/− mice.

(A–B) Immunostaining for GFAP in the coronal sections of the striatum and hippocampus. Activated astrocytes with hypertrophic cell bodies and intensely stained processes were present in Bmi-1^−/− mice. (C) Bmi-1^−/− mice showed a higher number of GFAP positive astrocytes per coronal section of the striatum (786±72.4 vs. 183±28.69) and hippocampus (626±38.7 vs. 515±22.89) compared with WT controls. Five mice per genotype and 3 sections per mouse. (D) Bmi-1^−/− mice showed increases in relative protein expression levels of GFAP in the striatum (11.09±0.59 vs. 1±0.22) and hippocampus (1.63±0.22 vs. 1±0.16) compared with WT controls. Three mice per genotype and 3 independent experiments for each homogenized brain sample. Data are expressed as mean ± SEM. *P<0.05 vs. WT mice.