Figure 5
From: Oral Administration of Caffeine Exacerbates Cisplatin-Induced Hearing Loss
Caffeine enhances cisplatin–induced expression of inflammatory genes in the rat cochlea. (A) Cochleae from treated animals were collected and processed for mid-modiolar sections. These sections were immunolabelled with TNFα (green) antibody along with Hoechst (blue) to stain the cell nuclei. Representative images from the basal turn of the cochlea are shown. Scale bar represents 100 μm. (B) Bar graph plotted from the data presented in (A) show that cisplatin increased TNFα immunoreactivity in spiral ganglion (SG), OHC in the organ of Corti (OC) and spiral ligament (SL) but not in stria vascularis (SVA). Caffeine enhanced the increases by cisplatin in all regions of the cochlea except OHC. Increases in TNFα immunoreactivity by caffeine + cisplatin was blocked by R-PIA. Data represents mean ± SEM (n ≥ 3). (C) Cochleae from treated animals were also used for real-time RT-PCR to determine the levels of TNFα, iNOS and COX2. Caffeine significantly increases the expression of these inflammatory genes more than cisplatin, which is then blocked by R-PIA. Data indicate fold differences in the mRNA levels ± SEM (n ≥ 3). Asterisks, *p < 0.05 vs. vehicle, **p < 0.05 vs. cisplatin and #p < 0.05 vs. caffeine + cisplatin (one-way ANOVA).
