Beneficial Effects of Ethyl Pyruvate through Inhibiting High-Mobility Group Box 1 Expression and TLR4/NF-B Pathway after Traumatic Brain Injury in the Rat
Figure 4
HMGB1 and TLR4 mRNA expression in the rat brain of the Sham group, TBI group, and TBI + EP group. Upper panel: representative RT-PCR bands show the HMGB1 and TLR4 mRNA expression in each group. Bottom panel: density of mRNA bands from each group. Quantitative analysis of the RT-PCR results for the expression of HMGB1 and TLR4 mRNA. It shows that TBI induced a marked increase of HMGB1 and TLR4 mRNA expression in the brain tissue surrounding the contusion cortex compared with the Sham group (). After treatment with EP, the HMGB1 and TLR4 mRNA expressions were significantly downregulated compared to the TBI group (). Bars represent as mean ± SEM; , each group; **P, *P versus Sham group, #P versus TBI group.
