Figure 1

Effects of RNAi-mediated silencing of BACE on Aβ levels and caspase-3 activation in H4-APP cells. A. Treatment of BACE siRNA (lanes 3, 4 and 7) decreases the levels of BACE as compared to control siRNA (lanes 1, 2, 5, 6 and 8) in the Western blotting analysis. Isoflurane treatment (lanes 5 and 6) induces caspase-3 activation as compared to control condition (lanes 1 and 2). The BACE siRNA treatment alone (lanes 3 and 4) does not induce caspase-3 activation. However, the BACE siRNA treatment (lane 7) attenuates the isoflurane-induced caspase-3 activation (lanes 5, 6 and 8) as compared to control siRNA treatment (lanes 5, 6 and 8). B. Quantification of the Western blots shows that BACE siRNA treatment (black bar) decreases the levels of BACE (** P = 0.0008) as compared to control siRNA treatment (white bar). C. BACE siRNA treatment (black bar) reduces the levels of Aβ40 (left panel, ** P = 0.0003) and Aβ42 (right panel, * P = 0.02) as compared to control siRNA treatment (white bar). D. Quantification of the Western blots shows that isoflurane (black bar, * P = 0.011) induces caspase-3 activation as compared to control condition (white bar). BACE siRNA treatment (net bar, ## P = 0.002) attenuates the isoflurane-induced caspase-3 activation as compared to control siRNA plus isoflurane treatment (black bar).