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. 2020 Nov 26;21(23):8977. doi: 10.3390/ijms21238977

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Early effects of a low dose of AgNPs/Ag+ on the expression of astroglial glutamate transporter GLT-1 in the brain of exposed rats (PND 35). (A) Representative confocal images of GLT-1 immunofluorescence in brain sections from the control and AgNP- and Ag citrate-treated rats. Double immunostaining was performed with anti-GLT-1 (red) and anti-GFAP (green) antibodies. Nuclei were labeled with Hoechst (blue). Scale bars represent 20 μm. (B) The mean intensity of the fluorescence signal. Data are presented as means ± SD (n = 9–12 sections from three distinct brains in each group). (C) Relative expression of GLT-1 protein in the brain of the control and AgNP- and Ag citrate-treated rats. Representative immunoblot and graph illustrating the mean results of densitometric measurements of five independent immunoblots performed using four distinct animals per group expressed as a percentage of control. The relative density was measured against β-actin as an internal standard. (D) Expression of GLAST mRNA in the brain of the control and AgNP- and Ag citrate-treated rats. The mRNA levels were determined by quantitative real-time PCR and normalized against actin. The graph indicates the results expressed as arbitrary units from four independent experiments. One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s multiple comparison test was used for statistical analysis.