Fig. 3.

Expression of presynaptic proteins in the dorsal striatum of 18-month-old Snca^flox/- and Snca^flox/+ mice injected with tamoxifen and Snca^flox/- mice injected with vehicle at the age of 6 months. (A) The upper panel shows a representative Western blot image illustrating the expression of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and synaptophysin with β-actin as a loading control. Individual mouse striata were analyzed. The Cy5-conjugated secondary antibody was used for the detection of these proteins. A bottom part of the same membrane was probed with an antibody against mouse α-synuclein (middle panel), and then, without stripping, was re-probed with an antibody against β-synuclein (bottom panel). HRP- conjugated secondary antibody and chemiluminescent detection were used for the detection of both synucleins. For quantification, protein bands were scanned, levels of TH (B) and synaptophysin (C) were normalized to levels of β-actin in studied striatal samples and then to the average level in control Snca^flox/+ mice. Bar charts show means±SEM of normalized values obtained by Western blot analysis of 6 vehicle-injected (veh) and 6 tamoxifen-injected (TMX) Snca^flox/- mice and 4 tamoxifen-injected Snca^flox/+ (TMX (α⁺)) mice. Statistical analysis using the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed no statistically significant difference between groups (p = 0.9704; Kruskal-Wallis statistic 0.06548 for TH and p = 0.2438; Kruskal-Wallis statistic 2.890 for synaptophysin).