Fig. 6

Sustained administration of D-PUFAs diminishes the levels of iNOS and 3-NT in SN DA neurons and mitigates α-syn-induced activation of microglia. a and b Representative confocal laser scanning micrographs acquired at 40 × illustrating the immunoreactivity of TH⁺ (blue), iNOS or 3-NT (green) and human α-syn (red) in the contralateral and ipsilateral rat SN. Bar graphs summarizing the fluorescence intensity of iNOS (b) and 3-NT (d). Scale bar: 20 μm. e Confocal image acquisition of midbrain sections immunostained using antibodies against TH⁺ (blue), Iba1 (green) and human α-syn (red) was performed at 20 ×. f Number of Iba1-positive cells. Insets represent a 4 × zoomed images. Scale bar: 5 μm low magnification; 10 μm for high magnification. An average of three midbrain sections per animal were evaluated and data from each tissue section were combined to determine means. Results are expressed as mean ± SEM of four different animals per group. ****p < 0.0001 and **p < 0.01. Two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc multiple comparisons test