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. 2020 May 22;17(10):3675. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17103675

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© 2020 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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VPA induces rat growth plate chondrocyte apoptosis, caspase 3 expression, and caspase 3 cleavage. Rat growth plate chondrocytes were incubated with 60 μg/mL of VPA for 5 days, followed by labeling with annexin-V andannexinV/7-amino-actinomycin D (7-AAD). (A) A representative dot-plot showed annexin-V vs. 7-AAD permeability protocol, with the four major populations of viable and apoptotic cells identified. VPA induced the average percentage of cells in the early stages of apoptosis (annexin-V positive/7-AAD negative) increased from 3.44% to 11.4%. Left: control; right: VPA. (B) quantifying four repeated studies showed that VPA significantly induced chondrocytes in the early stages of apoptosis (Control vs. VPA: 3.61 ± 1.09 % vs. 14.35 ± 2.62%; n = 4, *** p < 0.001). (C) The upper blot showed that VPA treatment enhanced the expression levels of caspase 3. The lower blot shows the α-tubulin expression levels that were detected in the same experiment by stripping and reprobing using anti-α-tubulin antibody. (D) Collected results from four experiments. Caspase 3 protein band densities (upper blot in C) expressed relative to α-tubulin expression levels (lower blot). The ordinate shows caspase 3 protein expression levels normalized to level in absence of VPA. Results showed that VPA increased 1.39 ± 0.07-fold of the caspase 3. α-tubulin is used as an internal control. (n = 4, ** p < 0.01). (E) The upper blot shows that the cleaved caspase 3 expression was increased by VPA treatment. The lower blot shows the α-tubulin expression levels that were detected in the same experiment by stripping and reprobing using anti-α-tubulin antibody. (F) Collected results from four experiments. Cleaved caspase 3 protein band densities (upper blot in E) expressed relative to α-tubulin expression levels (lower blot). The ordinate shows cleaved caspase 3 protein expression levels normalized to level in absence of VPA. Results showed that VPA increased 1.46 ± 0.29 fold of the cleaved caspase 3. α-tubulin is used as an internal control. (n = 4, * p < 0.05).