Figure 3.

Dichloroacetate restores mitochondrial fusion dynamics in etomoxir treated PC12 cells. Differentiated PC12 cells were pre-incubated with 10 mM DCA and the effects on mitochondrial fusion dynamics assayed by confocal microscopy. (A) Quantitative data shows no inhibition of fusion in DCA treated cells (dashed green line) compared to controls (bold green line). (B) Quantitative data shows the inhibition of fusion in etomoxir treated cells was reversed by DCA. (C) Quantitative data shows the inhibition of fusion in MPP⁺ treated cells was partially reversed by DCA. ^#Indicates significant differences between MPP⁺ treated cells and cells which have been treated with both MPP⁺ and DCA. (D) Overexpression of mutant (A53T) α-synuclein decreased mitochondrial fusion rates in differentiated PC12 cells. This effect was not reversed by a 1 h incubation with 10 mM DCA. Data presented as mean ± SEM, n = 3 (n = 4 for MPP⁺ and DCA). Unpaired t-test at each time point with Welch correction for unequal variance. Results which were significantly different from controls are shown with ^*,#p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01.