Fig. 4

PhosphoS373Cx43 levels in Thy-1-stimulated reactive astrocytes. Representative immunofluorescence microphotographs of rat astrocytes treated or not with TNF (A), and astrocytes from transgenic hSOD1^WT (WT) or hSOD1^G93A (G93A) mice (C), stimulated or not with Thy-1-Fc for 10 min to evaluate Cx43 phosphorylation (green). Cells were also incubated or not with the AKT inhibitor (AKTi, 3 μM). Magnification bar = 50 μm. B, D Values in the graphs are the quantification of mean intensity of phosphoS373Cx43 (pCx43) fluorescence normalized by mean intensity of DAPI (blue) fluorescence expressed in arbitrary units (a.u.). Twenty-five cells were evaluated per condition, Control versus TNF (B) and WT versus G93A (D) with or without AKTi treatment before Thy-1 stimulation. *p < 0.05 (Mann–Whitney test)