Grip strength analysis of aged mice.

<p>Grip strength data for the entire ageing study. Graphs on the left display male data and graphs on the right display female data. Top graphs display forelimb data only and the bottom 2 graphs display data from all four limbs. WT indicates wild-type animals, HET indicates heterozygote animals. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.</p

Immunohistochemistry in aged spinal cord sections.

<p>Expression of phosphorylated neurofilaments, GFAP, and eEF1A2 in cervical spinal cord sections from 21 month old mice. The top panel in each case shows a section with primary antibody omitted from the protocol, the second panel from the top shows sections from a 24 day old wasted homozygote as a control, and the bottom two panels show sections from an aged matched wild-type and heterozygous male. The NF staining clearly shows perikaryal accumulation of NF staining in the wasted mouse section but not in the aged <i>+/wst</i> mouse. The GFAP staining shows a characteristic pattern of reactive astrocytes throughout the grey matter of the spinal cord, even in the aged wild-type mouse. The eEF1A2 shows no staining at all in the section from the <i>wst/wst</i> mouse as expected, and fainter but easily detectable, albeit reduced, staining in the aged <i>+/wst</i> sample.</p

Grip strength analysis of young wasted mice.

<p>Forelimb (top panel) and all four limbs (bottom panel) grip strength analysis of wasted mice. The daily grip strength reading of 3 tests (measured in Newtons) were normalised to body weight (measured in grams). P values were calculated comparing wasted mice with controls (+/+ and <i>+/wst</i> combined). * indicates a P value<0.05, ** indicates a P value<0.01, and *** indicates a P value <0.001.</p

Protein expression in aged mice.

<p>Western blots showing protein expression of eEF1A2 and GAPDH (as a loading control) of animals from the ageing cohort. Three 21month old animals from each group are shown. WT indicates wild-type animals, HET indicates heterozygous animals, M indicates a muscle sample (as an eEF1A2 positive control) and L indicates a liver sample (an eEF1A2 negative control), both from wild-type mice.</p

Motor neuron numbers from the spinal cords of the ageing cohort.

<p>Mean motor neuron counts from spinal cord sections from the ageing cohort. WT indicates wild-type animals, HET indicates heterozygote animals N  =  number of animals in the group, Mean  =  average of group, Min  =  minimum reading of group, max  =  maximum reading of group, S.D  =  standard deviation. No differences were significant.</p

Rotarod analysis of aged mice.

<p>Mean times of latency to fall from the rotarod over the 21 months of the ageing study. WT indicates wild-type animals, HET indicates heterozygote animals. The upper graph shows data from the male groups and the lower graph shows data from the female groups. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.</p