Figure 5.

Role of mitochondrial SOD2 and Prx3 enzymes. (a) The pretreatment of KO neurons with MitoTEMPO (red traces, averaged from all neurons of three representative experiments), a mitochondrial-targeted superoxide scavenger, prevents the oxidative burst and the loss of fura-2 dye that, instead, occurs in black dotted traces (untreated cells, as in Figures 3(a) and 3(b)) in both 2 and 8 DIV neurons. (b, c) Representative lanes (from a single western blot) and quantification (from 3 separate experiments, with all values first normalized on actin levels) reveal an increase in both SOD2 and Prx3 expression from 2 DIV to 8 DIV; this raise was much more remarkable in KO neurons than in WT. ^∗p < 0.05; ^∗∗∗p < 0.001.