Renal Tubular Cells from Hibernating Squirrels are Protected against Cisplatin Induced Apoptosis

Figure 4

(a) Representative blots show Akt1 shRNA-treated squirrel RTECs have significantly reduced expression of Akt1. Akt1 deficient squirrel RTECs treated with cisplatin have decreased protein expression of pAkt (ser473), pBAD (ser136), and increased expression of cleaved caspase-3 versus controls and wild type squirrel RTECs treated with cisplatin. (b) TUNEL + apoptotic cells are significantly increased in Akt1 deficient squirrel RTECs treated with 10 µM and 50 µM cisplatin versus wild type squirrel RTECs, untreated Akt1 deficient squirrel RTECs, and wild type squirrel RTECs treated with cisplatin. (^# and versus wild type and Akt1 deficient squirrel RTECs treated with 0 µM cisplatin (controls) and wild type squirrel RTECs treated with 10 µM and 50 µM cisplatin, n = 3). (c) Representative pictures of TUNEL staining in wild type and Akt1 negative squirrel RTECs treated with cisplatin. β-actin is used as a protein loading control. Vehicle treated cells are referred to as controls. Densitometry and statistical analyses of immunoblots are given in Supplementary Figure S3.

(a)

(b)

(c)