α7 Nicotinic Receptor Promotes the Neuroprotective Functions of Astrocytes against Oxaliplatin Neurotoxicity

Figure 2

Effect of PNU in cocultures. (a) Cell viability. Neuron astrocyte coculture (2 10⁵ neurons/well and 8 10⁴ astrocytes/well) was incubated with oxaliplatin (0.3–100 μM) in the absence or presence of 10 μM PNU for 48 h. Neuronal cell viability was quantified by MTT assay. Values are expressed in percentage of control absorbance as mean ± S.E.M. of 6 experiments. Control condition absorbance was fixed to 100%. versus control; versus oxaliplatin treatment. (b) Caspase-3 activity. Neuron astrocyte coculture (7 10⁵ neurons/well and 4.5 10⁵ astrocytes/well) was incubated with oxaliplatin (0.3–100 μM) in the absence or presence of 10 μM PNU for 48 h. Neuronal enzymatic activity was measured by a fluorescent assay. Values are expressed as percent of control caspase-3 activity arbitrarily set as 100%. Bars represent mean ± S.E.M. of 3 experiments. One-way ANOVA was performed followed by a Bonferroni significant difference procedure. versus control; versus oxaliplatin treatment.

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