Apoptosis and DNA double-strand break in rat livers.

<p>Hepatic tissues were collected from the rats at the 48^th week after 4-week exposure to Cd at 20 nmol/kg for TUNEL staining (A, left panel) with a semi-quantitative analysis (A, right panel). Cleaved caspase-3 (c-CASP3) was examined by double immunofluorescent staining for c-CASP3 as red and nuclei by DAPI as blue (B). The sections from these rats were also stained for DNA double-strand breaks (C) with double immunofluorescent stains of β-actin (green, a, b) and γ-H2AX (red, c, d). Bar = 50 µm. Data was presented as mean ± SD. *<i>P</i><0.05 vs control.