Figure 3.

Western blot analysis suggests the activation of autophagy at the early stages of cardiac regeneration. The stimulation of autophagy at 3 dpa and the increased formation of autophagosomes between days 3–7 post-amputation, in comparison to sham-operated animals, is observed in the increased abundance of Beclin1, Lc3-I and Lc3-II, respectively (a). Moreover, a significant decrease on the phosphorylation ratio of the mTOR-target 4E-BP1 suggests the inhibition of mTOR at the early regeneration stages (b). Signal levels were normalized first to GAPDH-loading controls and then compared to the respective sham-control. Results were obtained from at least three biological replicates and averaged for the final statistical analysis. Representative blot-images of are shown, while full-length blots are presented in the Supplementary Information (Supp. Fig. 1). fc: fold change. *p ≤ 0.05. N ≥ 3.