Mammalian Sterile 20-Like Kinase 1 Mediates Neuropathic Pain Associated with Its Effects on Regulating Mitophagy in Schwann Cells

Figure 3

Mst1 knockdown might promote autophagic influx and affect Parkin-dependent mitophagy impaired by CCI. (a) TEM analysis of autophagy and mitophagy in injured sciatic nerves in the sham and the CCI groups. The right pictures are the enlarged view of box areas in the left pictures. Red arrows point to autophagosomes. White pentagrams indicate the engulfed mitochondria and the remnant of mitochondrial structure. Yellow arrows refer to the autolysosome with digested mitochondria. Red pentagrams indicate the SCs. Left pictures: 5800x; scale bar: 1 μm. Right pictures: 37000x; scale bar: 200 nm. (b) Quantitative analysis of the number of autophagosomes per perspective at 5800x magnification in the sham and the CCI group. ; . Statistical significance was determined by Student’s -test. All data were expressed as the . (c) Protein expression of Parkin, p62, and LC3-II with GAPDH as a loading control, and relative level of LC3-II/I ratio. ; ^# vs. other groups; . Statistical significance was determined by one-way ANOVA, followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc test. All data were expressed as the . CCI+si-NC: injured sciatic nerves were treated with scrambled siRNA as negative control; CCI+si-Mst1: injured sciatic nerves were treated with Mst1 siRNA.

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