Figure 5.

KCC2 overexpression rescues GluK2 depletion induced aberrant spine morphology. (A) High magnification photomicrograph of dendritic segments expressing scrambled shRNA_scrKCC2, shRNA_KCC2 and shRNA_KCC2 + GluK2 (scale bar: 5 μm). (B) Quantification of dendritic spine density showing a significant reduction in KCC2-depleted cultured hippocampal neurons. Overexpression of GluK2 however was not able to rescue this reduction. (C) Pooled data on the effect of KCC2 knockdown in different types of spines. Data are presented as mean ± SEM (p < 0.05, p < 0.001considered as significant). (D) High magnification photomicrograph of dendritic morphology in neurons expressing EGFP-control and shRNA_GluK2-EGFP and well as shRNA_GluK2 + KCC2 pcDNA (scale bar: 5 μm). (E) Quantified data illustrating that GluK2 silenced hippocampal neurons have a significantly lower number of dendritic spines in total in comparison with EGFP-control and this reduction is rescued by the overexpression of KCC2. (F) GluK2 silenced hippocampal neurons have a significantly lower number of dendritic spines of all subclasses in comparison with control. Overexpression of KCC2 can rescue the effect of shRNA_GluK2 on dendritic spine morphology. Data are presented as mean ± SEM (p < 0.05, p < 0.001 considered significant).