Measuring Microtubule Damage in Brain

To analyze microtubule damage from the brain sections, MAP2 was detected by immunofluorescence staining. MAP2 antibodies (Alpha Diagnostic Intl. Inc., San Antonio, TX, USA) for immunohistochemical staining were used as in a previous study [80 (link)]. Brain sections were soaked in a polyclonal rabbit anti-MAP2 serum (diluted 1:200, Alpha Diagnostic Intl. Inc., San Antonio, TX, USA) with PBS containing 0.3% TritonX-100 overnight in a 4 °C incubator. After overnight incubation, we washed the sections three times for 10 min with 0.01 M PBS, and then the brain sections were soaked in a solution of Alexa-Fluor-488-conjugated donkey anti-rabbit IgG secondary antibody (diluted 1:250, Invitrogen, Grand Island, NY, USA) for 2 h at RT. The brain sections were raised on gelatin-coated slides for analysis under a microscope. We used the Image J (NIH, Bethesda, Rockville, MD, USA) program to measure the microtubule damage and measured the mean gray value.