Figure 6

Roles of astrocytes and glutamate signalling in mediating the effects of maternal hypoxia and MitoQ-NPs on neurodevelopment. Mixed cortical cultures (a,d,g) or neuron-only cortical cultures (b,e,h) were incubated with rat placenta conditioned media. The latter were also incubated with medium conditioned by astrocytes which had previously been exposed to rat placenta conditioned media (c,f,i). Placentas were collected from pregnant rats that had been exposed to normoxia, M(21%), or hypoxia, M(11%), in combination with an injection of saline or MitoQ-NP. This was followed by incubation of the placenta in culture medium for 24 h ex vivo at 8% oxygen. To some of the cortical cultures NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 was added with the conditioned medium. (a–c) Dendrite lengths of neurons (number of biological replicates from left to right: a, n = 5; b, n = 5, 4, 5, 3, 3, 3; c, n = 5; d, n = 10). (d–f) Dendrite lengths of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH)-positive neurons (n = 5, 3, 5, 3, 3, 3). (g–i) Staining intensity of GluN1 receptor subunits (e, n = 7, 9, 5, 7; f, n = 3; g, n = 5; h, n = 12, 10, 10, 11, 25, 10). Significant differences determined using Tukey’s test following ANOVA (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001).