Nelfinavir limits post-ischemic mitochondrial cytochrome C release, brain infarct volume and cellular mortality.

<p><b>A, B</b> - Western blot analysis for the presence of Cytochrome C (Cyt C) in cytosolic (Cytosol) and mitochondrial (Mitos) fractions obtained from the ipsilateral hemisphere at five hrs after HI insult. β-actin was used as a loading control and cytochrome C oxidase (COX IV) was used as a purity control of cytosolic fraction and loading control for mitochondrial fraction. Quantitative data presented in (B) are expressed in arbitrary OD units normalized to β-actin. Vehicle –treated mice, n = 3, NLF-treated mice, n = 4. <b>C, D</b> - Cerebral infarct volume and representative TTC-stained brain slices obtained at 24 hrs of reperfusion after HI in the vehicle and NLF-treated mice. <b>E, F</b> – Cell mortality at 6 hours of reperfusion following 12 hours of OGD in HT-22 cells treated with vehicle (n = 7), NLF (n = 7) or RuR (n = 7) compared to naives (n = 4). <b>E</b> - Representative images of HT-22 cells in different experimental conditions stained with Propidium Iodide (red) and Hoechst (blue). Note that amount of red cells predominates in OGD-vehicle group. Confocal microscopy. Scale bar = 50 µm. <b>F</b> - Quantitative evaluation of cell mortality. One-way Anova, only significant difference is shown.