Figure 6.

Effect of MAPK kinase inhibitors on the expression of autophagy-related genes and proteins. Cells were treated with OXY (10 μg/mL) with or without MEK inhibitor (U0126), JNK inhibitor (SP600125), and p38 inhibitor (SB203580). Expression levels of Beclin-1, Atg7, Atg5, and LC3B were determined by qPCR (A). Expression levels of phosphorylated ERK protein were measured by Western blotting (B) and quantified (C). Expression levels of phosphorylated ERK, Atg5, and LC3B proteins were measured by Western blotting (D) and quantified (E). From each lysate, equal amounts of protein were loaded on a separate gel, blotted for actin and this signal was used for determining the ratio of the protein of interest/actin as displayed in the figure. The cropped blots are representative of three independent experiments. The full-length blots are shown in Supplementary Figures S3 and S4. Each value indicates the mean ± SD of three independent experiments performed in triplicate.