Quercetin Pretreatment Attenuates Hepatic Ischemia Reperfusion-Induced Apoptosis and Autophagy by Inhibiting ERK/NF-κB Pathway

Figure 4

Effects of QE on apoptosis and autophagy in mice on hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury. Notes: (a) mRNA levels of Bax, Bcl-2, Beclin-1, LC3, and P62 were measured with real-time PCR (, for sham versus IR, ^# for QE100 + IR versus IR, and ⁺ for QE200 + IR versus IR). (b) Protein expression of Bax, Bcl-2, Beclin-1, LC3, P62, caspase 3, and caspase 9 were detected with Western blotting. (c) Immunohistochemistry staining (×200) showed the expression of Bax, Bcl-2, Beclin-1, P62, and LC3 protein in liver tissues at 8 h. The ratio of positive area to total area was counted with Image-Pro Plus (v 6.0) (, for sham versus IR, ^# for QE100 + IR versus IR, and ⁺ for QE200 + IR versus IR). (d) TUNEL staining (×200) showed apoptotic cells in three groups at 8 hours. The percentage of TUNEL-positive cells are expressed as means ± SD (, for sham versus IR, ^# for QE100 + IR versus IR, and ⁺ for QE200 + IR versus IR).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)