Fig. 2. Cardiac CO, PGC-1, TFAM and Pol expression. (A) Cellular CO content and PGC-1 mRNA levels. (Left) Dose-dependent increases in left ventricular CO content in blood-free tissue of Wt mice exposed to CO for 1 hour (mean + s.e. in pmol/mg tissue, n=4; ^*P<0.05). Hypoxia (HH, 1 hour) was the control. (Middle) Cardiac mRNA levels for PGC-1 in Wt mice by real-time RT-PCR 6 hours after CO exposure. Hypoxia (HH, 1 hour) with 5 hours recovery was the control (pmol/mg tissue, n=4 per group; ^*P<0.05). (Right) Dose plot for CO content and cardiac PGC-1 mRNA. (B) Pol (left) and TFAM protein (middle) in Wt and eNOS^–/– mouse hearts by western blot analysis. -actin was the loading control. Histograms are the mean + s.e. for n=4; ^#P<0.05 compared with control for both strains. The right panel shows mtDNA copy number in Wt and eNOS^–/– mice 24 hours after treatment with CO. The top band corresponds to the 571-bp mtDNA and the bottom band to the 332-bp competitive DNA fragment of the sample. Values are the mean + s.e., n=4 for each strain, ^*P< 0.05).