Fig. 7.

The effect of pectinase-treated Panax ginseng extract on the testicular protein expression level of key proteins involved in the sex hormone-related spermatogenesis pathway in young and aged rats. The protocol described in the Materials and methods section 2.4, 2.5 was followed. The protein expression level of nectin-2 and cAMP responsive element binding protein in testicular tissue was analyzed using western blotting. (A) Tissue lysates from the indicated groups were immunoblotted with specific antibodies. Beta-actin was used as the internal control. (B, C) The protein band intensity of nectin-2 and cAMP responsive element binding protein, respectively, normalized to β-actin is shown. The data are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (n = 6). * p < 0.01 compared with the young control rat group. ** p < 0.05 compared with the aged rat control group. *** p < 0.01 compared with the aged rat control group as determined with Student t-test and one way analysis of variance using GraphPad Prism version 4.0 for Windows. AC, aged rat control group; CREB-1, cAMP responsive element binding protein 1; GINST, pectinase-treated Panax ginseng extract; GINST-AC, GINST-treated (200 mg/kg body weight) aged rat group; YC, young control rat group.