Figure 6.

Effects of antioxidant NAC and PI3K inhibitor LY294002 on mitochondrial transmembrane potential (MMP) and cytosolic cytochrome c protein expression in SiO₂NPs-treated L2 alveolar epithelial cells. Cells were pretreated with NAC (1 mM) or LY294002 (2.5 μM) for 1 h, and then treated with SiO₂NPs (100 μg/mL) for 24 hours. The MMP was determined by flow cytometery with a fluorescent dye DiOC₆-FITC (A). Data are presented as the means ± S.D. of four independent experiments with triplicate determination. *p < 0.05 as compared to vehicle control. ^#p < 0.05 as compared to SiO₂NPs groups. The cytosolic cytochrome c protein expression was determined by Western blot analysis (B-a and -b). Data are representative of three independent experiments performed in triplicate.