Fig. 7.

Decreased expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase ALDH1a1 in 18-month-old mice following conditional inactivation of Snca gene in their neurons at the age of 12 months. (A) Fold changes (mean ± SEM) of the expression of aldehyde dehydrogenase 1a1 (ALDH1a1) mRNA in the midbrain of tamoxifen-injected (TMX (12 m)) versus vehicle-injected (veh) mice assessed by real-time qRT-PCR. RNAs extracted from midbrains of 6 animals per group were analyzed in two technical repeats (∗p = 0.0167; sum of ranks (191, 109); Mann-Whitney U = 31). (B-D) Direct measurement of mRNA content by nanoString/nCounter technique revealed no significant expression differences (p >0.05, Mann-Whitney test) for mRNAs encoding catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT), monoamine oxidase A (MaoA) and monoamine oxidase B (MaoB). (E, F) Images of two representative Western blots illustrating the expression of ALDH1a1 in the dorsal striatum with β-actin as a loading control. For quantification, protein bands were scanned, levels of ALDH1a1 were normalized to levels of β-actin in studied striatal samples and then to the average level in control vehicle-injected mice. Bar chart show means±SEM of normalized values obtained by Western blot analysis of 6 vehicle-injected and 10 tamoxifen-injected Snca^flox/- mice (p = 0.1471; sum of ranks (65, 71); Mann-Whitney U = 16).