Isoflurane effects on the expression of interleukin 6 (IL-6), activated/cleaved caspase 3 and cluster of differentiation 11b (CD-11b) in rat brain tissues.

<p>Eighteen-month-old Fisher 344 rats had the training sessions of fear conditioning and 30 min later were exposed to or were not exposed to 1.2% isoflurane in the presence or absence of lidocaine for 2 h. Hippocampus and cerebral cortex were harvested at 48 h after anesthetic exposure for Western blotting. A: representative Western blot images. B, C and D: graphic presentation of the IL-6, cleaved caspase 3 and CD-11b protein abundance quantified by integrating the volume of autoradiograms from 4 rats for each experimental condition. Values in graphs are expressed as fold changes over the mean values of control animals and are presented as the means±S.D. *P<0.05 compared with the control group. ? P<0.05 compared to isoflurane alone. Statistical analysis was performed by one-way analysis of variance. C: control, I: isoflurane, I+L: isoflurane plus lidocaine.