Fig. 5

The downregulation of VGF and BDNF in the hippocampus induced by LPS was alleviated by pretreatment with IL-1β shRNA lentivirus in mice. a Mouse hippocampus samples were examined by using immunofluorescent analysis; sections were labeled with the anti-VGF antibody (red) and with fluorescent nuclear DAPI staining (blue) and visualized using a fluorescence microscope. Scale bar = 50 μm. b Quantification of the VGF optical density per pixel was significantly decreased by LPS and was significantly alleviated by pretreatment with the IL-1β shRNA lentivirus in mice (n = 3 per group). c Representative immunoblots of VGF detected by western blotting with tissues from the hippocampus, and the rest panel is quantification of the immunoblotting bands of VGF (d). The downregulation on VGF in the hippocampus induced by LPS was significantly blocked by pretreatment with the IL-1β shRNA lentivirus in mice. e The downregulation of BDNF in the hippocampus induced by LPS was significantly blocked by pretreatment with the IL-1β shRNA lentivirus in mice. The data are expressed as the mean ± SEM (n = 3 per group for western blotting and n = 6 per group for ELISA). **p < 0.01 compared with the NS shRNA plus saline group; ##p < 0.01 compared with the NS shRNA + LPS group