Fig. 1.

Tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated protein 1 (TRAP1) regulates apoptosis in hypoxic cardiomyocytes. a, b Confirmation of viral-mediated overexpression or knockdown of TRAP1 in cardiomyocytes. a Western blotting demonstrated TRAP1 overexpression mediated by adenovirus (Ad_TRAP1). Adenoviral vector encoding green fluorescent protein (Ad_GFP) served as a negative control. b Western blotting demonstrated TRAP1 decrease mediated by adenoviral shRNA (TRAP1_shRNA). Adenoviral-mediated expression of scrambled shRNA (Cont_shRNA) served as a negative control. c. Representative images of cardiomyocyte apoptosis were detected by TUNEL staining after Ad_TRAP1 or TRAP1_shRNA transfection with or without hypoxia. TUNEL staining (brown yellow) indicates apoptotic cells. Scale bar = 50 μm. d Apoptosis rates of cardiomyocytes were quantitatively analyzed in each treatment group. The percentage of apoptotic cells was calculated by randomly selecting ten fields. n = 5/group. *p < 0.05 vs normoxia group; **p < 0.05 vs hypoxia group and hypoxia+Ad_GFP group, respectively; #p < 0.05 vs hypoxia group and hypoxia+cont_shRNA group, respectively. The oxygen concentration is 1%. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Error bars indicate SEM, p value was analyzed using post hoc Tukey’s tests. The experiment was repeated three times. GAPDH glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, TUNEL terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling