Figure 1. H₂O₂ treatment increases autophagy flux in melanocytes.

(A) Immunoblots of LC3 in MC and PIG1 cells treated with H₂O₂ (0.5 mM) for different hours. (B,C) Band intensity normalized to β-actin is expressed as mean ± SD, **p < 0.01. (D) TEM images of autophagic vacuoles in cells treated with or without H₂O₂ for 12 hours. Arrows indicate the autolysosome. Scale bars represent 1 μm (upper row) and 500 nm (lower row). (E) MC and PIG1 cells were transfected with adenovirus expressing mRFP-GFP-LC3. After a 24-hour transfection, cells were treated with or without H₂O₂ for 12 hours. As shown in merged confocal images, the yellow puncta indicate the autophagosome while the red puncta indicate the autolysosome. Scale bars represent 5 μm. (F,G) The number of autolysosome dots were counted on 40 cells in a minimum of 3 experiments and expressed as mean ± SD, ***p < 0.001.