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Figure 2 | Journal of Neuroinflammation

Figure 2

From: Astrocytes acquire resistance to iron-dependent oxidative stress upon proinflammatory activation

Figure 2

Activated astrocytes are protected from mitochondrial damage induced by acute iron overload. (A, B) Cells were loaded with both fura-2 and TMRM in order to monitor the iron oxidative status (Fe2+) and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm), respectively. After iron overload, the resting astrocyte (A) showed a progressive ΔΨm decay before cell death (i.e., the drop of fura-2 signal). The signal of both fura-2 and TMRM, on the contrary, remained stable in activated astrocytes (CK) challenged with iron overload (B). The traces represent the temporal analysis of the fluorescence within a single representative astrocyte in a microscopic field (expressed as RFU). (C) In order to evaluate mitochondrial morphology, cells were transfected with a mitochondrial red fluorescent protein (left panel). Iron overload had a strong effect on the mitochondrial morphology in resting astrocytes (middle panel). In contrast, mitochondrial shape was preserved in activated astrocytes (right panel).

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