Figure 3.

Peripheral nerve injury alters forkhead class box O3a (FOXO3a) immunoreactivity in uninjured neurons contralateral to axotomy.

Dorsal root ganglia (DRG) from L4–6 spinal nerve transected rats were collected at the predetermined time points 1 hour, 1 day, 2 days, 4 days and 1 week post-injury. (A) Representative immunofluorescence photomicrographs of 6 μm L5 DRG sections directly contralateral to those presented in Figure 2 and mounted and processed on the same slide to detect cell FOXO3a protein and allow for direct comparison. Scale bar: 50 μm. Naïve section mounted on the slide served as control for DRG ipsilateral and contralateral to injury. (B) Scatterplots depict relative changes in FOXO3a immunofluorescence signal over individual neuronal cytoplasmic and nuclear regions as related to cell size from sections presented in the photomicrographs. Experimental states as indicated. Dashed lines divide the plots into low versus moderate to heavily labelled populations. n = 178 to 294 neurons analyzed per condition.