Fig. 6

STAT3 phosphorylation was upregulated in activated astrocytes in sEH^−/− mice. Western blot analysis showed that the intraperitoneal injection of LPS significantly upregulated the phosphorylation of STAT3 in the hippocampus of Wt mouse brains (n = 4, p < 0.001), and this upregulation was also found in the cortex (p < 0.01) and the hippocampus (p < 0.001) of sEH^−/− mice (n = 4) (a). Intriguingly, LPS-induced phosphorylation of STAT3 was higher in the cortex of sEH^−/− mice (p < 0.05) than in that of Wt with LPS (n = 4). Although the phosphorylation of STAT3 in the hippocampus of sEH^−/− mice was slightly upregulated, confocal imaging showed that the phosphorylation of STAT3 (p-STAT3) was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the hilus of the hippocampus of sEH^−/− mice that received LPS than in Wt counterparts (b). A complete co-localization between phosphorylated STAT3 and GFAP is demonstrated by merged images. p-STAT3 was detected by an antibody against STAT3 phosphorylated at tyrosine 705 (pTyr705). DAPI was used to label nuclei. One-way ANOVA and Bonferroni multiple comparison test were performed (a) and a two-tailed independent Student’s t-test was performed (b). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001