Figure 6.

Gintonin and BDNF have a synergistic effect on dendritic growth. (A,B) Representative blots showing the effect of gintonin and BDNF co-treatment on Akt and CREB phosphorylation. DIV7 striatal neurons were treated with a suboptimal dose of gintonin (0.3 μg/ml) in the presence or absence of BDNF (5 ng/ml). Lysates were used for the immunoblot analysis of phospho-Akt, Akt, phospho-CREB, and CREB. (C,D) Densitometric quantification of the results are shown in (A,B). Results are means ± SEM from three independent experiments. (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.0005, Student’s t-test). (E) Representative images of gintonin and BDNF-treated striatal neurons. Cultured striatal neurons were treated with gintonin in the presence and absence of BDNF at DIV2. After 5 days of exposure, the cultures were fixed and stained with anti-MAP2 antibody. Neuronal processes were counted with fluorescent microscopy. Scale bar, 2 μm. (F) Quantitation of the number of primary and secondary dendrites is shown in (E). Results are presented as means ± SEM from three independent experiments determined from the analysis of 40 neurons per condition per experiment (****p < 0.0001, Student’s t-test). (G) Sholl analysis of the dendritic arbor showing the synergistic effect of gintonin and BDNF co-treatment on striatal neurons.