Fig. 6

DHCR24 overexpression decreases lesion size after middle cerebral artery occlusion in mice. a Lentivirus-mediated overexpression of GFP control or DHCR24 in mouse brain was induced 3 weeks prior to the tMCAO. Lesion size quantification at 1 day after tMCAO from 12 consecutive image planes revealed a significant reduction in the lesion size at the third imaged plane corresponding to the area where the lenti-GFP control (white circle) or lenti-DHCR24 (black circle) injections were done. b Representative MRI images of the GFP control and DHCR24 groups. Dotted line surrounds the ischemic lesion in the lenti-GFP control brain. Right panel demonstrates the local expression of GFP after striatal lentiviral vector injection, representative images of 3 coronary brain sections 0.8 mm apart (× 4 magnification, scale bar 200 μM). c Quantification data of the third imaged plane in reveals statistically significantly decreased infarction volume in DHCR24-injected animals compared to those injected with GFP control. d Lenti-DHCR24 injection had no effect on the extent of edema at the third imaged plane. e Western blotting was used to detect the protein levels of DHCR24 and GFP in the whole mouse striatum after lentiviral injection. Molecular masses in kiloDaltons are indicated on the left side of the blots. Less-than sign in the blot picture denotes an unspecific band. Quantification of DHCR24 with qPCR was used to detect the mRNA and Western blot to detect protein levels in the same samples. f The levels of mature (NLG1-m), immature (NLG1-im), and total levels (NLG1-m + NLG1-im) of NLG1 were determined from mouse striatum. The whole protein lysates of DHCR24 overexpressing and control samples were analyzed using Western blotting. Total protein lysate from mouse hippocampal primary neuronal cultures (HC) was used as control. In all graphs *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, mean ± SEM, n = 6