Figure 11.

Repeated injections of rats with VPA, sodium butyrate, and TSA increase brain levels of α-syn protein. Male Sprague Dawley rats (250 ± 10 g) were subjected to daily subcutaneous injections with VPA (300 mg/kg in saline), sodium butyrate (SB) (300 mg/kg in saline), TSA (0.2 mg/kg in DMSO), and their respective vehicle. Four days later, animals were killed by decapitation. The brains were removed and dissected, followed by homogenization and sonication for 40 s in lysis buffer as described previously (Ren et al. 2004). An aliquot of 15 μg was used for Western blotting as described in Materials and Methods. The blot in each lane represents the result from an individual animal.