Fig. 1

Effects of Cd on pro- and anti- apoptotic proteins in HepG2 cells. HepG2 cells were exposed to 5 and 10 μM CdCl₂ for 24 h and both whole cell extracts and mitochondrial fraction were prepared from the harvested cells as described in Materials and methods. (A) Caspase 3 activity in the presence and absence of 10 μM SnPPIX and (B) Calpain activities was determined in the whole cell extracts. Values represent mean ± SD for 3 separate experiments (n = 3). (C) The expression of mitochondrial BCL-xl protein was analyzed by western blot using antibodies to BCL-xl or Tom40 as internal control for protein loading. Quantification of protein expressions was done with image j. Data represent the mean ± SD of three different experiments (n = 3). ^#p < 0.0001 as significant differences between Cd-treated and control. ***p < 0.0001 as Significant differences between SnPPIX pre-treated and non pre-treated cells