Figure 8.

TonEBP expression is correlated with levels of osmoprotective genes in human NP samples. A, immunohistochemical staining of TonEBP in non-degenerated (grades ≤4) and degenerated (grades >4) human NP samples. Isotype IgG was used as negative control for staining. B, percentage of cells immunopositive for TonEBP was not significantly different between non-degenerated and degenerated tissue samples. C–E, correlation between mRNA levels of TonEBP and osmoregulatory target genes TauT (p = 0.0044) (C), SMIT (p = 0.03) (D), and AR (p = 0.0554) (E) was seen in all tissue samples analyzed. F, schematic of proposed regulation of TonEBP by TNF-α and downstream transcriptional responses. Activation by either TNF-α or NaCl induces nuclear abundance of TonEBP, but only NaCl induces TonEBP transcript levels. Upon stimulation with TNF-α, TonEBP participates in cross-talk with NF-κB family members to promote transcription of proinflammatory genes. A, scale bar for ×40 images (left) is 100 μm, and scale bar for ×100 images (right) is 50 μm. ns, not statistically significant.