Fig. 5

MO-mediated ablation of pggt1b mimics statin and hmgcrb MO-induced cerebral hemorrhages and effectively reduces the wild-type pggt1b mRNA. (A) Schematic representation of GGTase I-mediated transfer of a 20-carbon geranylgeranyl lipid to the cysteine residue of Rho GTPases. (B) Partial pggt1b pre-mRNA structure (not to scale) showing the exons (boxes), introns (black lines), the target of pggt1b MO (red vertical arrow) and the positions of forward and reverse primers (black arrows) used to test the efficiency of the pggt1b MO. ((C) and (D)) Representative bright-field photomicrographs of 48 hpf embryos. The blue arrow denotes the site of blood extravasation in the midbrain region of the embryo injected with pggt1b MO. Anterior is to the left and dorsal to the top. Scale bar=200 μm. (E) RT-PCR on total RNA extracted from in uninjected and MO-injected embryos at 48 hpf to assess pggt1b mRNA levels. MO injection results in the loss of wild-type pggt1b mRNA (see text for details). (F) The transcript levels of eif1a were assessed as an internal control and appeared unchanged.