Figure 3.

Effects of retigabine on oxygen and glucose deprivation (OGD)-induced necrosis and effects of OGD on K_v7 subunits expression. (A) Bar graph showing lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity measured in the incubation medium in brain slices exposed to normal artificial cerebrospinal fluid (aCSF) (control, black columns), to OGD+vehicle (white columns), or to OGD+1 μmol/L retigabine, after 30 and 60 minutes of reoxygenation. Data are expressed as percentage of respective control. Each bar represents the mean±s.e.m. of 8 to 10 slices from 4 to 5 rats. *P<0.05. (B) Q-PCR experiments showing mRNA levels encoding for K_v7 subunits in striatal slices exposed to normal aCSF (control) or OGD. Data are normalized to housekeeping gene gapdh and expressed as relative to the average of controls, using the 2^−ΔΔCt formula. Values are mean±s.e.m. of 4 to 6 slices. *P<0.05. (C) Western blot analysis for K_v7.2 protein expression on total lysates from control- or OGD-treated slices. The inset shows a representative blot for K_v7.2 and β-actin. The approximate molecular mass for each of these proteins (expressed in kDa) is shown on the left. Bar graph shows the quantification of the averaged OD values for the K_v7.2 bands, normalized to the OD value for β-actin, in both normal aCSF (black columns) and OGD-exposed (white columns) slices. *P<0.05 vs respective control; n=5 for both control- and OGD-exposed slices.