Fig. 5: Reduced stroke-induced neural injury in GLUT1 cKO mice.
From: Astrocytic GLUT1 deletion in adult mice enhances glucose metabolism and resilience to stroke
a Experimental timeline: Stroke was induced in male mice 60 days post-tamoxifen, followed by perfusion 7 days later. MCA, middle cerebral artery; LSI, laser speckle imaging. b Representative (LSI) images of Ctrl and cKO mice pre- and post-stroke, with infarct areas outlined. c Cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes (%) (left) and hypoperfused area size (right) showed no significant differences between Ctrl (n = 9) and cKO (n = 8, p = 0.3353 and p = 0.8724, two-sided unpaired t-tests). d Post-stroke body weight changes did not differ between genotypes (n = 9 vs. 8, Finteraction(4,60) = 2.436, p = 0.7515, two-way ANOVA). e NeuN (neurons), GFAP (astrocytes) and DAPI (nuclei) stainings of infarcted brain sections 7 days post-stroke. Dashed outlines indicate lesion areas. f Neural injury volumes (in mm³) were significantly reduced in cKO (n = 8) vs. Ctrl (n = 9) when quantified using NeuN and GFAP (p = 0.011, linear mixed model). Individually, NeuN-based injury volume was 9.91 mm³ in Ctrl and 5.50 mm³ in cKO, while GFAP-based volumes were 9.02 mm³ in Ctrl and 5.26 mm³ in cKO. On average, cKO mice had 43.1% ± 8.4% SEM smaller lesions. Box plots show the median (center line), quartiles (box bounds), mean (+), and 1.5× interquartile range (whiskers). g Immunolabelling of NeuN, GFAP, IBA1 (microglia), and DAPI at the infarct. Dotted lines indicate infarct border and peri-infarct region (observed in 7-8 mice per genotype). h Sholl analysis of infarct border astrocytes showed a comparable number of intersections between genotypes, with a significant difference observed at 76 µm from the soma (n = 48 vs. 56 cells from 7 and 8 animals, p = 0.03; linear mixed-effects model with post-hoc pairwise comparisons). i Sholl analysis of peri-infarct astrocytes revealed a significantly fewer intersections in cKO compared to Ctrl (n = 97 vs. 110 cells from 7 and 8 animals, p < 0.001 within 16–30 µm from the soma; linear mixed model with post-hoc pairwise comparisons). Data in (c, d, h, and i) are represented as mean ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
