The viability of the cells (>90%)

was determined before harvesting and freezing for ascities production. Mice were first inoculated intraperitoneally with monoclonal antibody-producing hybridoma cells; thereafter, the ascites fluid was collected and purified (1st Base, Singapore, ProSci Incorporated, USA). Further purification with Protein A agarose (Thermo Scientific, USA) and elution with 0.1 M citrate buffer containing 0.05% sodium azide were carried out. The eluate was concentrated in a centrifugal filter unit (Millipore, USA), washed with HDAC inhibitor sterile phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and stored as a 1 mg/ml stock containing 0.05% sodium azide and 0.1% glycerol. Sections were immunostained with a primary antibody solution which contained goat anti-CRF RI/II antibody (SC1757, 1:1000, Santa Cruz, USA), mouse anti-relaxin-3 antibody (1:1000), rabbit anti-tryptophan hydroxylase 2 (TPH2) antibody (AB5572, 1:1000, Chemicon, USA) or rabbit anti-glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) antibody (Z0334, 1:1000, Dako, Denmark). Stained sections were subsequently visualised with donkey anti-goat Alexa Fluor 555 (1:400), donkey anti-mouse Alexa Fluor 488 (1:400) or goat anti-rabbit Alexa Fluor 488 (1:400) secondary

antibodies, after which slides were washed and CDK and cancer mounted using Prolong Antifade with DAPI (Invitrogen, Singapore)

and viewed with a fluorescence microscope. The CRF RI/II polyclonal antibody used here was raised against the C-terminus of human CRF1, which is conserved across rat and mouse CRF1. Its specificity has been demonstrated previously by Chen et al. (2000) in experiments in which pre-incubation with the antigenic peptide abolished CRF1 signals in western blots and staining in mouse brain sections. In mouse heart sections known to express only CRF2, no staining was observed (Chen et al., 2000). To evaluate the specificity of this antibody in the NI neurons, a 10× relative concentration of the CRF blocking peptide (C-20P, Santa Cruz, USA) was pre-incubated with a 1:1000 dilution of click here the antibody overnight at 4 °C. NI sections were then incubated in this solution overnight and then further processed for CRF RI/II staining. Total RNA was extracted from the tissue and purified according to the manufacturer’s instructions for PureLink RNA mini kit (Invitrogen, Singapore). The amount of RNA was quantified with a NanoDrop UV–vis spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific, USA). Approximately 1 µg of total RNA was reverse transcribed with oligo(dT) primers using ImProm-IITM Reverse Transcription system (Promega, USA).