Figure 1.

Characterization of the forkhead class box O3a (FOXO3a)-expressing subpopulation of sensory neurons.

Representative images of a L5 DRG section from a naïve rat processed for dual immunofluorescence to examine incidence of FOXO3a immunofluorescence signal in calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP)-positive neurons with 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining used to identify nuclear regions. Red asterisks (*) show examples of neurons with moderate to heavy FOXO3a immunofluorescence that have detectable levels of CGRP; green asterisks (*) show examples of FOXO3a positive neurons without detectable CGRP, while blue asterisks (*) identify examples of neurons negative for both markers. Red arrows show examples of nuclei that are FOXO3a positive with numerous co-labelled nerve fibres also apparent. The last: Merged images of FOXO3a image (red) with CGRP (green). Note that FOXO3a is expressed predominantly in CGRP-positive neurons. Scale bar: 50 μm.