Fig. 6

Glial activation and neuroinflammation were induced after BaP exposure. a, b Microglial activation was indicated by immunostaining with Iba-1 antibody (a) and counting of Iba-1-positive cells (b) in the cortex and the hippocampus. c Confocal double-staining of microglia and Aβ plaques by anti-Iba1 and anti-Aβ antibodies in the hippocampus. d Astroglial activation was detected with anti-GFAP antibody. e The GFAP immunoreactivity was measured and expressed as a percentage of the WT-Vehicle. f, g Levels of iNOS, gp91, and GFAP (three widely used neuroinflammatory markers) were detected by Western blot. β-Actin was used to monitor loading errors. Data are expressed as percentage of WT-Vehicle and are mean ± SEM of 3–4 mice in each treatment group. Significance was determined by two-way ANOVA followed by LSD multiple comparisons post-hoc test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01 compared with WT-Vehicle control, ^#P < 0.05 compared with WT-BaP group