Overexpression of Mitochondrial Calcium Uniporter Causes Neuronal Death

Figure 3

MCU overexpression impairs neuron survival. (a) Mouse primary cortical neurons were infected with synapsin-driven EGFP (synGFP) or MCU-EGFP (synMCU-GFP) adenoviral particles, and representative images were acquired 48, 72, or 96 hours after infection, respectively. The scale bars represent 60 μm. (b) Cells were treated as in (a) and the apparent percentage of GFP-positive neurons relative to the first time point (48 hours) was determined. (c, d) Mouse primary cortical neurons were infected with synapsin-driven EGFP (synGFP) or MCU-EGFP (synMCU-GFP) adenoviral particles. After 48, 72, or 96 hours, cells were fixed and TUNEL assay was performed. (d) Representative images of GFP (green)- and TUNEL (red)-positive neurons. The scale bars represent 10 μm. (d) Quantification of TUNEL-positive neurons for the indicated conditions. At least 60 random fields from 3 different preparations were analyzed. compared to control. Detailed statistics are described in Table 1.

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