Figure 4.
Ongoing neurodegeneration sustained microglial activation. A–C, The neuron–glia cultures (A, C) and mixed-glia cultures (B, C) were treated with normal saline (NS), 0.5 μm MPP+, or 10 ng/ml LPS for different periods of time and were lysed in RIPA buffer. Cell lysates were size fractionated by 4–12% SDS-PAGE gels and probed by Western blot for Iba1 or β-actin. C, The ratios of densitometry values of Iba1 and β-actin in A and B were analyzed and normalized to each responsive control. Quantification of TH-IR neurons in LPS-treated neuron–glia cultures revealed time-dependent loss of DA neurons. The long-term upregulation of Iba-1 positively correlated with the neuronal death. The results are the mean ± SEM of three experiments performed in triplicate. *p < 0.05 compared with the corresponding saline-treated controls.