Fig. 5

Expression of apoptosis proteins and genes in the tbx5 morphants and IGF-I-treated tbx5 morphants. Expression of the bad gene was significantly induced in the MO group (a) at 24 and 30 hpf, and the expression of bcl2 was significantly induced in the MO group at 24, 30 and 48 hpf. b. There were no significant differences in the expression levels of bad and bcl2 between the WT, WTIGF1 and MOIGF1 groups. Zebrafish embryos at 30 hpf were stained by the proapoptotic-related antibody BAD (red) and anti-apoptotic related antibody BCL2 (red) and were counterstained with DAPI (blue) for nuclear observation. Expression levels in the sagittal sections of hearts are shown in C1–3 and E1–3; expression levels in the transverse sections of pectoral fins are shown in D1–3 and F1–3. The WT group had very low expression of the BAD apoptotic protein (Figure 6C1, 6D1) and BCL2 pro-apoptotic protein (Figure 6E1, 6F1). Expression of the BAD apoptotic protein (Figure 6C2, 6D2) and BCL2 pro-apoptotic protein (Figure 6E2, 6F2) was induced significantly in hearts and pectoral fins in the MO group, whereas expression of BAD (Figure 6C3, 6D3) and BCL2 (Figure 6E3, 6F3) was significantly reduced in the MOIGF1 group. Data are presented as the means ± standard deviations. ^*P < 0.05 vs WT. WT: wild-type embryos; MO: tbx5 morphants; MIS: mismatch tbx5 morpholino-treated wild-type embryos; WTIGF1: IGF-I-treated wild-type embryos; MOIGF1: IGF-I-treated tbx5 morphants; hpf: hours post-fertilization. The number of specimens was 50, and the number of independent experiments was 3 in each group