Fig. 5

Western blot of whole protein extracts of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) nuclei and cytosol fractions of rats with hindpaw inflammation versus control (Ctrl) with anti-mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), Poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP), or ß-actin antibody. a, b Western blots of the nuclear and cytosol fractions were verified by the detection of the nuclear component Poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase (PARP) (110 kDa) and the cytosol component ß-actin (43 kDa), respectively. In both the nuclear and cytosol fractions MR (107 kDa), specific protein was detected under inflamed and control conditions. However, nuclear fractions from DRG innervating inflamed hindpaws showed a significant 8-fold increase in the density of the MR protein compared to control DRG (P < 0.05, two-tailed independent Student’s t test; n = 6). c, d Confocal microscopy showing increasing overlap of MR-immunorecativity (red fluorescence) with nuclear DAPI (blue fluorescence) staining of DRG of FCA-treated rats versus controls