Fig. 3: Age-dependent GFAP and GS upregulation and ezrin deficiency.

a Representative examples of immunostaining for glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in cortical tissue from younger (left) and older (right) adults. b Percentage of the image covered by pixels stained for GFAP in two age groups (P < 0.001; younger adults: N = 3 people, n = 24 images; older adults; N = 4 people, n = 34 images). c Representative examples of immunostaining for ezrin in cortical tissue from younger (left) and older (right) adults. The astrocytic territorial domains are outlined by dotted line. d Ezrin immunostaining intensity averaged in the astrocyte territorial domain and normalized to the immunostaining intensity of soma in two age groups (P < 0.001; younger adults: N = 3 people, n = 9 cells; older adults: N = 4 people, n = 12 cells). e Representative Western blots of cortex homogenates stained by antibodies against GFAP (left) and total protein bands (right). f GFAP amount normalized to total protein amount in two age groups (P = 0.04; younger adults: N = 7 people; older adults: N = 7 people; n = N). g, h Same as (e, f) but for ezrin (P = 0.005; N/n—numbers are the same as for (f)). i, j Same as (e, f) but for glutamine synthetase, GS (P = 0.03; N/n—numbers are the same as for (f)). Data are shown as box-and-whisker plots where the box is Q1 and Q3 with median, and whiskers are the ranges within 1.5IQR. Empty boxes/circles—younger adults, filled boxes/circles—older adults. Two-tailed (except for (f), where one-tailed) Mann–Whitney test: ^N.S.P > 0.05, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.