Fig. 5

Ethanol exposure causes similar levels of neuronal cell death in wild-type and med12 mutant embryos.

A-D, acridine orange stained embryos at 48 hpf, ventral views. A, untreated wild-type (wt) embryo. B, wt embryo treated with 2% ethanol for 18 hrs at 24 hpf. C, untreated med12^y82 embryo. Med12^y82 and wt embryos showed similar low levels of apoptosis. D, med12^y82 embryo treated with 2% ethanol for 18 hrs at 24 hpf. Med12^y82 and wt embryos treated with 2% ethanol showed similar increases in acridine orange staining. E, the average numbers of apoptotic cells in the brains of med12^y82 and control embryos treated with ethanol as in panels AD. There were significantly more apoptotic cells in the brains of med12^y82 embryos compared to wild-type embryos (p<0.05), however, following EtOH exposure, the numbers of apoptotic cells in the brains of both med12^y82 and wild-type embryos greatly increased. The number of apoptotic cells in the brains of med12 mutant embryos increased 2.8-fold compared to their untreated med12 mutant siblings (p = 0.073), while apoptotic cells increased over 5-fold in ethanol-treated wild-type embryos compared to their untreated siblings (p<0.005). Error bars represent SEM. **p<0.01, *p<0.05.