Fig. 1.

Liver MTmRNA (RT-PCR) concentrations in young, old and very old mice after partial hepatectomy/liver regeneration. [(▨) sham; (■)at 48 h; (▧) 15th day]. RT-PCR analysis of liver mRNA using specific primers for murine MT-I and β-actin under conditions described in Section 2 After mRNA isolation and cDNA synthesis, the amount of mRNA for MT-I was determined by semi-quantitative PCR. The densitometry analysis was also performed using Gel-Doc instrument (Bio-Rad, USA). The results are shown in the histograms and are expressed as MT-I/β-actin ratio. *P<0.001 when compared with young and very old mice (sham). **P<0.001 when compared with respective sham controls.