Figure 7. Acidosis maintains mitochondrial function during hypoxic stress.

(a) TMRE staining and quantification of fluorescence intensity following 18-h incubation in SD or AP media in hypoxia. Mean and s.d. (n=3 from three independent experiments). The uncoupler FCCP, which dissipates the membrane potential, is used to show specificity of the measured TMRE fluorescence. (b) Total ATP levels relative to normoxic control (in black). Mean and s.d. (n=5). (c) Total ATP concentration per cell at steady state (black) and after 1-h oligomycin treatment (grey) following 6 h of treatment at the indicated conditions. Mean and s.d. (n=3 replicates from six independent experiments). (d) Quantification of the amount of ATP depletion following 1-h oligomycin treatment in cortical neurons infected with lentivirus encoding a scrambled control (shCtr) or OPA1-specific shRNA (shOPA1). Mean and s.d. (n=3 replicates from three independent experiments). (e) ATP levels per cell relative to initial values (black) following oligomycin and 6-DOG treatment. Mean and s.d. (n=3 replicates from three independent experiments). (f) Total ATP levels per cell at steady state (black) and after 1-h oligomycin treatment (grey). Graphs represent mean and s.d. of n=3 replicates from six independent experiments. *P<0.05; **P<0.01; ***P<0.001 (Student’s t-test).