Figure 4.

Effects of exogenous treatment of NRG1 on PKC inhibitor STS-induced apoptosis in undifferentiated rat GCs. Undifferentiated GCs were isolated from two ovaries per rat per sample and grown in culture dishes. Thereafter, GCs were pretreated with NRG 1 for 24 hours, then treated with STS (1 μM) for 3 hours in serum-free medium, or GCs were cotreated with NRG 1 along with STS (1 μM) for 3 hours in serum-free medium. (a) STS induced morphological changes in presence or absence of NRG1 in GCs. Representative phase photomicrographs of live cells were taken under an inverted microscope at ×200 magnification at 3 hours after treatment with STS in NRG1-pretreated or cotreated groups. (b, c) Representative WB analysis of STS-induced active caspase-3 expressions in (b) NRG1-pretreated or (c) NRG1-cotreated GCs for 3 hours. Equal amounts of protein were applied to each lane and WB analyzed for active caspase-3 expressions. α-Tubulin was used as an internal control. Bar diagrams represent the densitometric analyses of protein in WB from three independent experiments that were performed for each individual group. Data given as mean ± standard error of the mean. *P ≤ 0.05.