Fig. 5: NACET reverses age-associated alterations in redox balance and proteostasis.
From: Oxidative stress causes a reversible decrease of deubiquitylases activity in old vertebrate brains
A Schematic illustrating N-acetylcysteine ethyl ester (NACET) treatment in aged (22–24 months) C57BL/6J female mice. Animals were treated with 0.25 mg/mL NACET in drinking water to achieve a final concentration of 50 mg/kg/day of NACET (two independent cohorts; N = 3 and N = 4). B Reduced thiol concentrations in the NACET-treated mouse brains (N = 7). C DUB activity (N = 7). D K48 polyubiquitylated protein abundance quantification normalized to total protein levels (N = 6). E Proteasome activity (N = 6). Data in all panels are pooled from two independent experiments, with technical outliers excluded as described in the Methods section. F Absolute quantification (AQUA-PRM) of total ubiquitin and K48-linked ubiquitin chains in NACET vs. vehicle-treated aged mouse brains (N = 4). In all panels, two-tailed unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction was used. RFU = Relative Fluorescence Units. Data are shown as mean ± SD in all panels. N refers to the number of biological replicates used in the experiment. Related to Supplementary Data 3. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Created in BioRender. Sahu, A. (2026) https://BioRender.com/5q3eb5x.
