Anti-apoptotic effect of exogenous NGF pretreatment on TGF-β1-induced and oxidative cell death of primary hepatocytes.

<p>Primary rat hepatocytes grown on collagen-coated chamber slides were treated with recombinant NGF at 20 ng/mL for 24 hrs and exposed to either TGF-β1 at 50 ng/mL or H₂O₂ at 500 µM for another 24 hrs. After treatments, cells were fixed with paraformaldehyde and subjected to in situ TUNEL staining for cellular apoptotic events. (A) Representative TUNEL staining images are shown (Bars = 10 µm). Positive control (PC) was performed by treating cells with DNase I. (B) Nuclear TUNEL-positive signals were quantified by measuring 20 high-power fields per group and the positivity are shown in mean±SEM. * indicates <i>P</i><0.05 as compared with negative control (NC) or between groups.