Fig. 2

H19 is involved in astrocyte activation in the hippocampus of epileptic rats. a, b Top: experimental timeline. Middle: representative fluorescence micrographs of GFAP expression in the hippocampus of H19 overexpression (a) and H19 knockdown (b) rats with or without KA treatment for 7 days. Scale bar = 50 μm. Bottom panels show counts of cells in the CA3 regions of the hippocampus ipsilateral to the KA injection side (n = 3). c, d Western blot analysis of GFAP protein levels in the CA3 subfield of the hippocampus of H19 overexpression (c) and H19 knockdown (d) rats with or without KA treatment for 7 days (n = 3–4). Protein bands were quantified by densitometry and normalized to the level of GAPDH. Data represent mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. NC rats injected with empty AAV vectors, Scr rats injected with scrambled AAV vectors, ShRNA rats injected with AAV vectors containing short hairpin RNA targeting H19