Fig. 3

AQP4-Ab promotes extracellular mtDNA releases from HEK cells expressing AQP4. Cell cultures were stimulated with sera from NMOSD patients or healthy control subjects. HEK293 cells expressing AQP4 incubated with sera from NMOSD patients showed a balloon-like morphological change (arrowheads) (a). The level of extracellular mtDNA in the culture medium was higher with sera from NMOSD than with control sera in HEK293 cells expressing AQP4 (b). The total amount of DNA did not differ significantly between the two groups (c). The data are expressed as means ± SEM. *p < 0.05; NS not significant (p ≥ 0.05). Bar 20 m