Fig. 2

Altered C3 and VGF processing in the P10 Smarca5 cKO cerebellum. An N-terminal C3α chain sequence (shaded gray) found within the C3a peptide bears structural similarity to a C-terminal VGF sequence (shaded gray) within the TLQP-62 peptide (a). Alignment of the human (Homo), chimpanzee (Pan), and mouse (Mus) sequences are shown. C3 and VGF immunoblotting showed additional bands (small closed arrows), presumably corresponding to cleavage products, in Smarca5 cKO and Smarca5 cKO, C3aR KO double mutant (dKO) cerebellum samples (b). Open arrows in b indicated full-length C3α and VGF. VGF mRNA was upregulated ~ 2-fold in the P10 Smarca5 cKO and dKO cerebellum (c) (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.005). C3 mRNA expression, however, was unchanged in the mutant cerebellum samples. d The common receptor for VGF and C3, C3aR, was detected only in Iba1⁺ macrophages and microglia (Additional file 4). The specificity of the C3aR labeling was demonstrated by the lack of immunolabeling in the dKO cerebellum. Top images in each pair show the merge of Iba1 and C3aR labeling, and bottom images show C3aR labeling alone. Scale bar =50 μm and applies to all images