Figure 1.

HPTLC (High-performance thin-layer chromatography) analysis from different brain tissues of sham-treated and treated Npc1^+/+ and Npc1^−/− mice (A–E, all groups n = 3). HPTLC images visualized the differences of phospho- and sphingolipid amounts in the four different groups. Changed lipid classes were marked with gray arrows, corresponding to the gray boxes also shown in the digital scanning profile. Band intensities of the separated lipids were calibrated in arbitrary units (AU), representing the relative absorbance. The retention factor (Rf) represents the relative distance the substance ran compared to the distance the solvent front ran. Compared to sham-treated Npc1^+/+ mice, most of the lipids showed reduced band intensities in all brain regions of sham-treated Npc1^−/− mice; only the brain stem showed slightly raised band intensities. The treatment of Npc1^-/- mice results in most of the lipid classes to less pronounced changes of band intensities. However, some lipid classes also showed raised band intensities in treated Npc1^+/+ mice compared to sham-treated Npc1^+/+ mice. Scanning profiles were normalized by considering that the maximum on the normalization range (portion of the given track Npc1^+/+ sham) represents 0.9 AU. TopFluor LPA was used as loading control (see Figure S2). LPA: lysophosphatidic acid.