Augmentation of Nrf2 levels is associated with DHA-enriched diet. (A) Photomicrographs of HuC/HuD (red) and Nrf2 (green) immunofluorescence show colocalization of HuC/HuD and Nrf2 in the myenteric ganglions of Thy1-αSyn mice and their wild-type littermates. Maximum intensity projections are shown. Scale bar = 10 μm. (B) Immunoreactivity quantification of Nrf2 colocalizing with HuC/HuD (enteric neuron body) reveals lower levels of cytoplasmic-Nrf2 for the transgenic model on control and low ω-3 PUFA diets compared with wild-type animals. In contrast, mice maintained on the DHA-enriched diet show an increased Nrf2 level similar to wild-type mice (one-way ANOVA: p = 0.0040). Tukey’s post-hoc tests: * p < 0.05 compared with wild-type mice; #
p < 0.05 compared with Thy1-αSyn on control diet; &
p < 0.05 compared with Thy1-αSyn on the low ω-3 PUFA diet. Abbreviations: A.U., arbitrary unit; ChAT, choline acetyltransferase; CTRL, control; DHA, docosahexaenoic acid; Nrf2, nuclear (erythroid-2) related factor-2; TH, tyrosine hydroxylase; WT, wild-type. (white dots) show an increase of varicosities per 100 μm of dendrites in transgenic mice fed with DHA-enriched diet compared to control diet.