Figure 5.

Western blotting analysis of the expression of Dicer and activated caspase-3 in the oviducts after genital chlamydial infection. Oviducts from infected and noninfected mice were homogenized, and equal amounts of total protein from each sample were loaded onto a 4%–20% SDS-PAGE gradient gel, electrophoresed and transferred on to nitrocellulose membranes. The blots were probed with primary antibodies against Dicer, the pro- or activated caspases). A primary antibody against Glyceraldehyde 3 phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) was used as the housekeeping gene expression control. The secondary antibody was detected by Western ECL-enhanced luminol reagent (PerkinElmer Inc, Morrisville, NC). The figure shown is a representative of 4 independent experiments showing identical results.