NF-κB is involved in cocaine and gp120-induced astrocyte apoptosis.

Abstract

<p>(A) Rat primary astrocytes grown on coverslips were treated with cocaine (10 µM) and/or gp120 IIIB (200 ng/ml) for 15 min and stained with an anti-NF-κB p65 antibody, followed by treatment with an Alexa Flour 488-conjugated secondary antibody. Slides were mounted in Slow Fade antifade reagent (with DAPI, blue nuclear stain) and images were captured by fluorescence microscope. Scale bars indicate 20 µm. (B) Western Blot analysis of nuclear extracts from cocaine and gp120-treated cells for varying times (5 to 60 min) using an antibody specific for p65 subunit of NF-κB. Representative immunoblot and the densitometric analysis of p NF-κB/histone from three separate experiments is presented. All the data in these figures are presented as mean±SD of three individual experiments. *<i>p</i><0.05 versus control group. (C) Inhibition of NF-κB using the specific inhibitor TPCK (10 µM) resulted in abrogation of cocaine and gp120 toxicity. **p<0.01 versus control group. # p<0.05 versus cocaine + gp120 group.</p