Figure 1

Cortical, but not cerebellar, astroglia mediate FFA-induced tau hyperphosphorylation and BACE1 upregulation in cortical neurons. Both cortical and cerebellar astroglia were treated for 24 hours with 0.2 mM of palmitic acid (PA) or 4% BSA (control), followed by transfer of the astroglia-conditioned media to cortical neurons (24 hours treatment). (A) Western blot analysis of hyperphosphorylated tau (AT8 antibody) and BACE1. β-actin is shown as a marker for protein loading. (B) Histograms corresponding to AT8 and BACE1 blots represent quantitative determinations of intensities of the relevant bands, presented as the ratio of PA-treated to control. Data represent mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments. Student's t-test was used for analyzing differences between two treatment groups (* p < 0.05 compared with control).