Figure 2

Molecular effects of resveratrol on pro-apoptotic proteins in E1A.NR3 retinal cells. Effects of resveratrol on Bax expression in the cytoplasm (A) and mitochondria (B). The retinal cells were treated with 40 μM resveratrol (Res) for 16 hrs followed by treatment with 0.8 mg/ml of Rec-1 and Enol-1 for 45 min. The protein expression was determined by Western blotting and the expression level is presented as a fold increase calculated from the intensity of each band compared to the untreated control after adjusting for the loading control using densitometry analyses. The bars represent an average of three experiments. (C) Effects of resveratrol on caspase-3 activity. The EnzChek Caspase-3 fluorescent assay was used to determine the protease activity of caspase-3 in E1A.NR3 cells in the presence and absence of 40 μM resveratrol pretreatment (16 hrs) followed by induction of apoptosis using 0.8 mg/ml of Rec-1 or Enol-1 for 8, 16, and 24 hrs. Each treatment was replicated three times and the experiment was repeated twice. The statistical significance of treatments under each time of exposure was estimated against vehicle control using two-way ANOVA and Mann-Whitney t-tests. * = p ≤ 0.05; ** = p ≤ 0.01.