Fig. 1. Anesthesia with 3% sevoflurane for 6 h induces caspase-3 activation and amyloid precursor protein (APP) processing in the brain tissues of neonatal naïve mice. (A ) Anesthesia with 3% sevoflurane for 6 h (lanes 5–8) induces caspase-3 cleavage (activation) when compared with the control condition (lanes 1–4) in the brain tissues of neonatal naïve mice. (B ) Caspase-3 activation assessed by quantifying the ratio of cleaved (activated) caspase-3 fragment (17–20 kDa) to FL-caspase-3 (35–40 kDa) in the Western blot. Quantification of the Western blot shows that sevoflurane anesthesia (black bar ) induces caspase-3 activation compared with the control condition (white bar ). (C ) Sevoflurane anesthesia (lanes 4–6) reduces the levels of APP-C83 and APP-C99 when compared with the control condition (lanes 1–3). (D ) Quantification of the Western blot shows that sevoflurane anesthesia (black bar ) decreases the ratio of APP-C83 to APP-FL when compared with the control condition (white bar ). (E ) Quantification of the Western blot shows that sevoflurane anesthesia (black bar ) decreases the ratio of APP-C99 to APP-FL when compared with the control condition (white bar ). We have averaged the results from six independent experiments. FL = full length. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01.