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Fig. 3 | Molecular Autism

Fig. 3

From: Absence of parvalbumin increases mitochondria volume and branching of dendrites in inhibitory Pvalb neurons in vivo: a point of convergence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk gene phenotypes

Fig. 3

Quantitative morphological analyses of Pvalb neurons from PV-EGFP and PVKO-EGFP mice in the hippocampal regions CA1 (a), CA3 (b), and DG (c). Low magnification images of the analyzed brain regions are shown in the left panels (scale bars 600 μm). Higher magnification images (scale bar 10 μm) show representative Pvalb neurons stained for EGFP (green; cytoplasm), COX I (red; mitochondria), and DAPI (blue; nucleus). Partially merged images EGFP/COX I reveal mitochondria within Pvalb neurons, EGFP/DAPI images were used to distinguish cytoplasmic regions from nucleus and a merge of all three images is shown in the right. Overall fluorescence intensity (grey circles) measurements reveal similar global EGFP intensity stainings in sections from PV-EGFP and PVKO-EGFP mice. Analyzed parameters include the following: volume of cytoplasm (Vcytoplasm; green), mitochondria (Vmitochondria; red), and nuclei (Vnuclei; blue) in a given Pvalb neuron. Additional parameters were calculated: ratio Vmitochondria/Vsoma (magenta), ratio Vnuclei/Vsoma (cyan), and soma volume (orange). Each dot in the graphs represents the average obtained in 1 animal (5 per genotype) and 10–15 cells per animal resulting in > 50 cells per brain region per genotype. ns not significant, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001

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Molecular Autism

ISSN: 2040-2392