Fig. 1.

Stearic and palmitic acid treatments result in loss of viability and increased apoptosis. (a) Stearic and palmitic acid treatments (300 μm) result in loss of viability of NGF-differentiated PC12 cells. Differentiated PC12 cells were treated for up to 24 h with either stearic, palmitic, oleic or arachidonic acid complexed with BSA (2 : 1 ratio). Viability was assessed by trypan blue exclusion during the course of fatty acid treatment. (b) Stearic and palmitic acid treatments increase the percentage of nuclei exhibiting apoptotic morphology. Cells were fixed and stained with 4′,6′-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) during the course of stearic and palmitic acid treatments. Nuclei were visualized under fluorescent microscopy and nuclei exhibiting condensed and/or fragmented morphology were scored as apoptotic. A minimum of 1000 cells were counted per sample for viability and apoptosis assays. Data represent the mean ± SD of three independent experiments performed in triplicate.