Figure 3.

Expression of mitochondrial markers after SCI. (a,b) Western blot and quantification using an antibody against VDAC1/Porin, an outer mitochondrial ion dependent channel. One-way ANOVA, Fisher’s LSD Post-hoc test. All data are mean ± SEM. (c) Relative gene expression of Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PGC-1α). The expression levels of mRNAs were measured by real-time PCR. Values represent relative expression levels of PGC1-α in uninjured rats (n = 5) compared to the injured spinal cord of KD rats (n = 6) compared with CD rats (n = 6). Two-way ANOVA, Tukey’s Post-hoc test. All data are mean ± SEM. (d,e) Example high magnification micrograph of the ventral horn of an uninjured spinal cord stained with TOM20 (mitochondria), NF200 (Neurofilament) and NeuN (D). Intensity quantifications of the mitochondrial import receptor subunit (TOM20) from randomly outlined NeuN⁺ cells (n = 9–12) (e). One-way ANOVA, Fisher’s LSD Post-hoc test. All data are mean ± SEM. Two different mitochondrial markers both targeting outer mitochondrial membrane proteins were used due to its differential effectiveness in detecting the target in western blots or in immunofluorescence. The blots from the same gels were cropped and rearranged in the following order: Uninjured, Control Diet, Ketogenic Diet; to make them more clear and enhance reader’ understanding of the figure and the subsequent quantifications. Membranes were cut previous incubation with primary antibodies in order to optimize limited sample use. Full-length blots/gels are presented in Supplementary Fig. 5.