Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jul 10.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Commun. 2012;3:1250. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2238

Figure 4. PGC-1α is required for the maintenance of dendritic spines in adult mouse hippocampal dentate gyrus granule neurons.

Figure 4

(a) Low magnification images showing GFP fluorescence in neurons in the dentate gyrus. Adenoviruses that contain GFP-Si-Con or GFP-Si-PGC1α were injected into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus of 2 month-old male mice. Two weeks later the mice were euthanized, and brains were sectioned and confocal images of GFP fluorescence were acquired. (b) Representative confocal images showing PGC-1α immunostaining (red) and GFP (green) in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus of mice in which granule neurons were infected with either Ad-GFP-Si-Con or Ad-GFP-Si-PGC1α. (c, d) Representative confocal images showing dendritic trees (c) and dendritic spines (d) of neurons infected with either GFP-Si-Con or GFP-Si-PGC1α. The dendritic spines were quantified in the secondary and tertiary segment of dendrites which are illustrated in b (bracelets). Scale bars in (a)=100 μm, (b) = 50 μm and in (c, d) =10 μm. (e–g) Results of quantitative analysis of total dendritic length, number of bifurcations, and dendritic spine density in dentate granule neurons infected with either Ad-GFP-Si-Con or Ad-GFP-Si-PGC1α. Values are the mean ± SD (n = 5 mice; 15–20 neurons analyzed per condition. **p<0.01 (Student’s t-test).