Figure 1.

The stabilization effect of 5-HMF on HIF-1α in ODD-Luc mice. (A) Comparison of the bioluminescence among anti-oxidative agents. The intensity of bioluminescence indicates the degree of HIF-1α stability. The ODD-Luc mice were given an intraperitoneal injection of vehicle (normal saline), CoCl₂ (125 mg/kg), 5-HMF (100 mg/kg), ferulic acid (100 mg/kg), coumarin (100 mg/kg) or quercetin (100 mg/kg). The color bar indicates photons/(s/cm²/steradian), with minimum and maximum threshold values. (B, C) Determination of the dose and time effect of 5-HMF on HIF-1α stability. The left panel shows the bioluminescence intensity 1 h after the mice were treated with different concentrations of 5-HMF. The right panel shows the bioluminescence intensity at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 h after the mice were treated with 100 mg/kg of 5-HMF. The data that are shown are the means ± SE of three independent experiments. **p < 0.01 compared with the vehicle. (D, E) Western blot analysis of HIF-1α protein expression in the cortex and kidney tissues of ODD-Luc mice. Whole-cell lysates were subjected to an immunoblot assay for HIF-1α and β-actin. β-actin was used as an internal control. The values were normalized to the vehicle levels. The results are the means ± SE of four independent experiments. *p < 0.05 compared with the vehicle.