Fig. 8. Autophagy inhibition in LTD requires caspase-3 activity.

a, c, e Representative blots of primary hippocampal neurons lysed 15 min after NMDA treatment; DEVD (5 μM), APV (100 μM), rapamycin (1 μM), 5 min pretreatment. b Quantification for a. d Quantification for c. f Quantification for e. b, d, f Kruskal–Wallis one-way ANOVA on ranks was used for statistical analysis (p = 0.009 in b, p = 0.009 in d, p = 0.001 in f), and Student–Neuman–Keuls test for comparison with vehicle. g Representative blot of primary hippocampal neurons lysed 30 min after NMDA treatment. h Quantification for g; one-way ANOVA was used for statistical analysis (p = 0.007 for Atg3, p = 0.012 for Atg4B, p = 0.000847 for Atg5, p = 0.017 for Atg7), and Student–Neuman–Keuls test for comparison with vehicle. i, l Representative immunoblots of the CA1 region (P17–19). j Quantification of LC3-II in i (p = 0.000186). k Quantification of p62 in i (p = 0.0327). m Quantification for l (p = 0.00889 for Atg3, p = 0.0203 for Atg4B, p = 0.0323 for Atg5, p = 0.0275 for Atg7); two-tailed pared t-test was used for statistical analysis in j, k, and m. n Representative blot of the CA1 region. o Quantification for the CA1 lysate in n. p Quantification for the CA3 lysate in n. Two-tailed paired t-test or Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used for full-length caspase-3 (p = 0.479 in o, p = 0.867 in p) and cleaved caspase-3 (p = 0.375 in o, p = 0.806 in p). q, r Whole-cell recordings of CA1 neurons; caspase-3 (2 ng/μl), rapamycin (10 μM), deactivated caspase-3 (2 ng/μl). (R) EPSCs at 30–35 min were normalized to the 0–5 min baseline; one-way ANOVA was used to compare across groups (p = 3.6 × 10⁻¹⁸), and Bonferroni test for post hoc analysis. The number in the bars and n represent the number of cell cultures (b, d, f, h), animals (j, k, m, o, p), or cells (q); no adjustments for multiple comparisons. Data show mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.