Figure 1.

Argon preconditioning attenuates rotenone-induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, irrespective of treatment time.

(A) The percentage of annexin and porpidiumiodide positive (pos.) cells, indicating late apoptosis. Exposure to rotenone (ro) increased the percentage of apoptotic cells. Two and four hours of preconditioning with argon (ar) 74% reduced apoptosis. (B) The effect was similar at a lower argon concentration (argon 50%). (C) Preconditioning with argon 25% also showed a significant but attenuated effect. Between-group comparisons were performed with a one-way analysis of variance using the post hoc Holm Sidak test (n = 6; mean ± SD; ***P < 0.001). (D) Flow cytometry representation of dot plots for the interventions with argon 74% (2 and 4 hours). The purple points represent single cells. Clustering leads to a change of the color spectrum to green. Rotenone created a cluster predominately in the upper right quadrant, which decreased due to argon preconditioning.