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. 2017 Nov 27;12(11):e0188218. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188218

Fig 2. Despite heavy plaque load, beta amyloid plaque did not cause significant motor neuron loss at 27 weeks of age in 5xFAD mice.

Fig 2

(A) Representative micrographs showing ventral horns from a 5xFAD mouse (A2) and a wild type littermate (A1). Sections were labeled with anti-choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), a motor neuron marker, and counter-stained with DAPI to label nuclei. Motor neurons in both strains appeared normal with centrally placed nuclei and no sign of atrophy or chromatolysis. (B) Counting of ChAT-positive motor neurons revealed similar numbers in both strains. (C) Results were further confirmed by TUNEL staining (arrows) which labels apoptotic nuclei. The sections were co-labeled with various cellular markers (red) and 6E10 antibody and counter-stained with DAPI. No apoptotic oligodendrocyte (C3) or motor neurons were found (C4), only a few microglia (C1) and astrocytes (C2) were positive for TUNEL. Insets of C1-3 show higher magnification of TUNEL positive nuclei in various cell types. C5 shows many TUNEL positive nuclei in dorsal horn at 7 days after spinal cord contusion injury as a positive control. MNs: motor neurons. Scale bar in A = 200μm, C = 100μm.