Figure 3.

Palmitate stimulates cleavage of caspase 9 in HMC. (A) HMC treated with palmitate were analyzed for caspase cleavage by Western blotting of total HMC lysates with antibodies that recognize the cleavage products of human caspase 9 (p35), caspase-8 (p40 and p23), and caspase-2 (p15). For a positive control in each experiment, cells were treated for 8 h with an agent known to be a strong stimulus for the caspase in question: caspase 9, staurosporine 1 μM; caspase 8, etoposide 25 μM; and caspase 2, camptothecin 6 μM. The blots were reprobed with β-actin to ensure equal protein loading. (B) Densitometric analysis (mean ± SEM) of the p35 caspase 9 fragment from 3 independent experiments. **, P < 0.01 by ANOVA versus control.