Figure 5.

Scavenging of peroxynitrite-derived radicals reverses the decrease of mitochondrial complex levels in human MD-Schwann cells. Human WT- and MD-Schwann cells were cultured in the absence and presence of urate (50 and 100 μm) for 48 h before performing IR Western blots. A, representative IR Western blots of mitochondrial proteins Hsp60, PD, VDAC, and MnSOD in human WT- and MD-Schwann cells. Below, quantitation of the corresponding bands normalized against α-tubulin and expressed relative to untreated WT-Schwann cells (n = 3–5). VDAC was used as a mitochondrial loading control in the blot corresponding to MnSOD. B, representative images of human WT- and MD-Schwann cell mitochondrial morphology after 48 h incubation in the absence and presence of urate (100 μm). On the right, mitochondrial count and total mitochondrial area per cell are expressed as percentage of WT-Schwann cells (n = 4 with 5–6 replicates). C, representative IR Western blots of complex I, II, and IV in cell homogenates from human WT- (HSC-WT) and MD-Schwann cells (HSC-MD). On the right, quantitation of the corresponding bands normalized against α-tubulin and expressed relative to untreated control (n = 7–12). VDAC was used as a mitochondrial loading control. Columns represent the mean ± S.D. *, p < 0.05 versus untreated WT- or MD-Schwann cells by Kruskal-Wallis test followed by Dunn's post test.