bFGF plays a neuroprotective role by suppressing excessive autophagy and apoptosis after transient global cerebral ischemia in rats

a Immunoblots of the apoptosis-related proteins cleaved Caspase-3 and Bcl-2. Total cell lysates from the hippocampus were used, and β-actin was used as an internal control. b Immunoblots of p53, Bax, and cytochrome c in the cytosolic and mitochondrial fractions. GAPDH was used as a loading control for cytosolic proteins, and COX IV was used as the loading control for mitochondrial proteins. c Immunoblots of the autophagy-related proteins LC3B and Beclin-1. Total cell lysates from the hippocampus were used. d–k Densitometric analysis (mean？±？SEM, n？=？3 animals per group) of the proteins from (a, b, c) normalized to the respective loading controls. *P？<？0.05 vs. sham？+？vehicle, **P？<？0.01 vs. sham？+？vehicle, ***P？<？0.001 vs. sham？+？vehicl