Figure 4

Increased c-fos mRNA levels in affected motoneurons after stroke. (A) Cross-sections of the spinal cord at C7. The motoneurons were labeled with the retrograde tracer True Blue to isolate the motoneurons with LMD. Bar=200 μm. (a) Magnified view of the square in panel (A). The arrowheads indicate motoneurons labeled with True Blue. (b) Labeled motoneurons were isolated by LMD. (a and b): Bar=100 μm. (B) Quantification of c-fos mRNA expression in the affected motoneurons 1 week after stroke (by RT-PCR). The fold change in c-fos mRNA expression in the stroke group relative to the sham-operated group is presented as the mean±S.E.M. (n=4 for sham-operated mice and n=3 for stroke mice, approximately 50 motoneurons for each animal; **P<0.01 by Mann–Whitney U-test). (C) At 1 week after stroke, c-Fos-positive motoneurons in C7 increased in both the affected and unaffected sides of stroke mice compared with the respective side of sham-operated mice. Bars=100 μm. (D–G) Quantitative analyses of the number of c-Fos-ChAT double-positive motoneurons (arrowhead) in affected and unaffected spinal cord levels (C4–T1) in sham-operated and stroke mice at 1, 2, 4, and 8 weeks after stroke. *P<0.05, **P<0.01 between sham-operated and stroke mice on the affected side; ^#P<0.05, ^##P<0.01 between sham-operated and stroke mice on the unaffected side; ^†P<0.05, ^††P<0.01 between unaffected and affected sides in stroke mice (one-way ANOVAs followed by Tukey–Kramer tests)