Figure 1.

Effect of insulin deprivation on p53, Bcl-2, Bax, caspase-9, and caspase-3 mRNA levels in rat Sertoli cells. The figure shows pooled data of independent experiments, indicating the fold variation of mRNA levels found in rat SCs cultured in insulin deprivation conditions when compared with the control condition (dashed line). For each sample, the obtained band intensity was divided by the respective 18S band intensity, to obtain the relative abundance in each experimental condition. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM (n = 5 for each condition). Significantly different results (P < 0.05) are indicated: *relatively to control.