Figure 7

Quantification of neuronal death associated with uptake of anti-Hu and anti-Ri antibodies in rat hippocampal and cerebellar slice cultures. The percentage of dead neurons containing immunoglobulin (Ig)G is shown for control, anti-Hu, and anti-Ri patient sera for hippocampal (HC; blue bars) and cerebellar (Cb; red bars) cultures. Although a majority of anti-Hu samples produced neuronal death above controls, considerable variation in cytotoxicity was observed (see Results). Larger numbers of neurons labeled by death markers were seen in hippocampal cultures than in cerebellar cultures; however, this reached statistical significance in only one patient (patient 24a). Cultures exhibiting statistically significant death as compared to cerebellar or hippocampal cultures incubated with normal IgG, using Kruskal-Wallis nonparametric analysis of variance and Dunns multiple comparison test, are indicated by asterisks (*P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001).