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. 2012 Oct 26;7(10):e48034. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0048034

Figure 7. Astrocyte aging does not affect presynaptically silent synapses.

Figure 7

(A) Representative images illustrating the functional (non-silent) synapses labeled with both 10 µM fixable FM1-43FX (green) and VGLUT 1 antibody (red), and the inactive (silent) synapses labeled with VGLUT 1 antibody only (arrows). Autaptic neurons were co-cultured with 5- (control), 9- and 16-week-old astrocytes. (B) The number of VGLUT 1-positive puncta in autaptic neurons co-cultured with 5- (control), 9- and 16-week-old astrocytes (n = 27, 20 and 22 neurons, respectively). (C) The number of FM1-43FX-positive puncta in autaptic neurons. Data in (C-F) were obtained from the same neurons used in (B). (D) Ratio of presynaptically silent synapses to total synapses, measured as the fraction of VGLUT 1-positive puncta that did not colocalize with FM1-43FX. (E) Area (size) of the VGLUT 1-positive puncta, measured as the number of pixels. (F) Area (size) of the FM1-43FX-positive puncta, measured as the number of pixels.