Figure 2

Anesthetics induced cell death in primary cortical neuronal cultures and the synthetic peptide P110 rescued neurons from anesthetic-induced toxicity. Representative live-fluorescent images of different conditions labeled with a LIVE/DEAD Viability/Cytotoxicity Assay where live cells are identified with calcein-AM (green) and dead cells are identified with ethidium homodimer-1 (red) (a–j). Quantification of percentage of live cells (k–l). Exposure to 4.3 Vol% desflurane, treatment with 10 µM propofol, but not treatment with 5 µM ketamine caused significant cell death. P110 alone did not affect cellular viability whereas its pre-treatment protected neurons against desflurane. P110 pre-treatment followed by propofol or ketamine did not differ from that of the control. Two-Way ANOVA. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001, **** p < 0.0001 as determined by pairwise comparison of post-hoc tests. Bars indicate ± SD measured across biological replicates. Each data-point indicates the mean viability reported in any given biological replicate. Scale bars indicate 100 μm.