Figure 7

Recovery of synaptic marker proteins in hippocampus of MB-treated mice. (a) Levels of pre- and post-synaptic proteins synaptophysin, synapsin 1 and postsynaptic density 95 (PSD95) in hippocampus lysates of age-matched untreated and MB-treated Tau^ΔK mice. β-actin serves as loading control. (b) Determination of relative protein densities by quantification of (a). Untreated Tau^ΔK mice show a constant decrease of synapsin 1, synaptophysin and PSD95 levels in comparison to WT, due to constant expression of pro-aggregant Tau^ΔK. In contrast a recovery of pre- and postsynaptic markers is observed after preventive MB application for 14.5mo and 6mo, whereas therapeutic MB treatment for 3mo causes a partial rescue of post- but not of presynaptic markers. Protein levels were normalized to β-actin. Bars represent mean values ± SEM. Statistics: one-way analysis of variances with post-hoc Newman-Keuls multiple comparisons test. Asterisks indicate significant differences in comparison to untreated Tau^ΔK mice; *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01; n, number of samples.