Figure 4.

A, Western blot showing expression of AR. Homogenates of superior cervical ganglion and sympathetic cell culture lysate show a band of the expected molecular weight for the AR protein (110 kDa), which coincides with the control band of brain cortex homogenate. α-tubulin was used as a loading control. CTX, cortex; SCG, superior cervical ganglion; Sy, sympathetic neurons.

B, Immunostaining for the AR epitope reveals AR expression throughout cell bodies and neurites. AR is homogeneously distributed in the cell body, and in a punctate pattern along the processes of sympathetic neurons. Scale bar = 20 μm.

C, Electron micrographs showing representative axonal cross-section from sympathetic neurons. Abundant round microtubule are visible as well as membranous organelles.

D, Example of WGA vesicles moving in anterograde direction, empty triangle sign and white arrow. Asterisk indicates a stationary WGA vesicle. The images shown here were selected from a time-lapse movie in which images were acquired at 10 images frames/second.

E, Barplots showing the results of axon diameter quantification in sympathetic neurons. Mean axon diameter of myelinated axons was greater in Mibolerone 10nM (n = 2065 axons) as compared with Control (n = 1915 axons) but not with Mibolerone 4nM (n = 1979 axons). *p < 0.05 vs. Mibolerone 10nM.

F, Distribution of fiber diameters in sympathetic cell culture. All three condition show similar distribution of diameters. Ctrl = Control; M 4nM = Mibolerone 4nM; M 10nM = Mibolerone 10nM.