Ischemic Preconditioning Promotes Autophagy and Alleviates Renal Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury

Figure 2

Autophagy induction during ischemia/reoxygenation (I/R) injury in rats with ischemic preconditioning (IPC). Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to sham operation or 40 min of ischemia followed by 2 h, 6 h, 12 h, or 24 h of reperfusion with or without prior IPC, which consisted of four cycles of 8 min of clamping the left renal artery separated by 5 min of reperfusion. (a) Representative western blot gel documents and summarized data showing the levels of cleaved caspase-3, LC3II, and Beclin-1 protein expression. (b) Representative ultrastructure and semiquantification of autophagic vacuole formation in each group. N: nucleus; black arrowhead: autophagosome. Magnification ×20,000, scale bar = 1 μm. (c) Representative western blot gel documents and summarized data showing the levels of cleaved caspase-3, LC3II, Beclin-1, and SQSTM/p62 protein expression. The data are expressed as the mean ± SD. per group. versus the sham group. versus the I/R 6 h group. versus the I/R 24 h group. versus the I/R group at the corresponding time point. .

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