Fig. 4

Effect of TDZ on pro-inflammatory gene, trophic and transcription factor expression. a, b Human astrocytes were treated with medium alone (control), or different concentrations of TDZ (100 nM-1 μM) or FLUOX (10 μM) for 24 h (a) or 72 h (b). At the end of treatment, total RNA was extracted, and relative mRNA quantification of NF-kB, CREB, mTOR and BDNF was performed by real-time RT-PCR. The data are expressed as fold changes vs. control and represent the mean ± SEM of three different experiments, each performed in duplicate. Statistical significance was determined using a one-way ANOVA-Tukey HSD post hoc test: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 vs. control. c, d Human astrocytes were treated with medium alone (control), TDZ (10 μM) or FLUOX (10 μM) for 72 h. Following incubation, the protein levels of GFAP were evaluated by western blot analysis. GAPDH was the loading control. c Representative western blots. d Densitometric analysis of the immunoreactive bands was performed using ImageJ. The data are expressed as the percentage of optical density of the immunoreactive band relative to that of the control, which was set at 100 %, and are the mean values ± SEM of three different experiments. Statistical significance was determined using a one-way ANOVA-Tukey HSD post hoc test