Fig. 5

Effects of PA on hippocampal tissue under the HFe diet. A Western blots detecting protein levels involved in iron accumulation, cell death, AD risk makers and Pi transporters in hippocampal tissue of the mice (3 mice each group). B Quantification of iron, LD, Pi, AP and UA levels indicated that PA not only counteracted the HFe-induced increase in levels of iron (but not LD) in hippocampal tissue, but also decreased Pi and increased AP and UA levels in hippocampal tissue from the mice (above 5 mice each group).One-way ANOVA with post-hoc LSD test was used for significance. C Western blotting for detection of inflammatory protein levels indicated that PA counteracted the HFe-induced increase in protein levels of IL-6, IL-1β and CD68 in cortical regions and IL-6 and IL-1β in hippocampal regions (2 mice each group). D Representative IHC sections of tau deposition and expression in different areas of hippocampal tissues from the NS, FD and PA groups (3 mice each group). Green, red and blue dotted box arrowheads indicate CA3, CA2 and DG areas, respectively. Scale bar = 500 μm or 200 μm. E Representative sections of p-tau deposition (green) in the entire hippocampus, and in the CA3, DG and CA2 areas of the NS, FD, PA groups by immunofluorescence. The PA group showed a lowering of fluorescence intensity compared to the FD group (3 mice each group). Scale bar = 500 μm or 200 μm. All data are means ± SEM. One-way ANOVA with post-hoc LSD test was performed in (E). *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ns: no significant difference