Figure 5
Level of the apoptosis was observed in hepatocytes. A: Fluorescence images of TUNEL staining (red) and DAPI staining (blue) in liver tissues at various time points following Ag-nps administration. Experiments were carried out as described under Materials and Methods. Upper panel shows representative histograms of TUNEL and DAPI staining while lower panel depicts quantitative analysis of TUNEL/DAPI positive cells. Values (means ± SD) presented in lower panel were obtained by dividing numbers of TUNEL positive cells with total numbers of cells from DAPI stain. Number of experiments was 6 for each time point. **p < 0.01 vs. sham group; # p < 0.05 vs. Day 1 group. B: Changes in caspase-3 protein expression in rat liver at various time points following Ag-nps administration. The experiments were performed as described under Material and Methods. Upper panel shows the representative immunoblots of caspase-3 while lower panel depicts densitometric analysis of immunoblots. Values were presented as means ± SD (n = 6). *p < 0.05 and **p < 0.01 compared to sham group.