Hydrogen Sulfide Inhibits Autophagic Neuronal Cell Death by Reducing Oxidative Stress in Spinal Cord Ischemia Reperfusion Injury

Figure 6

H₂S inhibits neuronal autophagic cell death via the AKT-mTOR pathway. (a) Immunofluorescence analysis of TUNEL and LC3 in the spinal cord after I/R treated with or without Ly294002 or rapamycin. (b) Immunohistochemistry staining of Bax in the spinal cord after I/R treated with or without Ly294002 or rapamycin. (c) BBB scores of animals after SCIR treated with or without Ly284002 or rapamycin. (d) Western blots of cleaved caspase-3, Bax, BCL2, LC3, Atg12-Atg5, p62, P-AKT, and P-mTOR in spinal cord extracts from normal and I/R rats treated with or without H₂S. (e) Densitometric analysis of the immunoblot reported in (d). Samples from six normal and six I/R rats were pooled together. Images represent six rats per group with different treatments. Scale bar represent 10 μm. , , . Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA in (e) and two-way ANOVA in (c). H₂S: hydrogen sulfide; LY: Ly294002; RA: rapamycin; mTOR: the mammalian target of rapamycin; LC3: microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3; I/R: ischemia reperfusion; TUNEL: terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end labeling; BBB: Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan; SCIR: spinal cord ischemia reperfusion; ANOVA: analysis of variance.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)