Fig. 7

STEP-mimetic alleviates post-ischemic microglial activation in SHR rats. SHR rats were subjected to MCAO (60 min) and reperfusion (RPF) for 6 h. STEP-mimetic (TAT-STEP-myc) was administered in a subset of SHR rats at the onset of reperfusion. (A-B) Immunohistochemical staining of microglia with anti-Iba1 antibody. Representative photomicrographs in the left panels show changes in microglial morphology in SHR rats treated with or without the STEP-mimetic. The right panels show amplified images of a select Iba-1 positive microglia (in yellow box) and skeletonized pattern of microglial morphology. (C-K) Microglial cells (n = 45–50 cells) from the ipsilateral cortex were processed for assessment of morphological parameters by (C-G) fractal and (H-K) skeletal analysis. Scatter plots with mean ± SD presents the eight parameters: fractal dimension, lacunarity, cell area, cell perimeter, cell circularity, number of branches, number of junctions, maximum branch length and longest shortest path. (L-O) Tissue extracts from the ipsilateral cortex were processed to measure mRNA levels of (L, M) CD68 and (N, U) TNFα by quantitative real-time PCR. Bar graphs represent relative expression of CD68 and TNFα normalized against reference genes β-actin or HPRT (mean ± SE, n = 6). (C-O) Significant difference between means was assessed by student t-test and presented as *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 and ****p < 0.0001