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Figure 5 Transduction of TAT-BH4. To assess the functional significance of reduced Bcl-xL expression, cardiomyocytes were pretreated with a cell permeable Bcl-xL peptide (TAT-BH4). TAT-BH4 completely prevented the decline in (a) mitochondrial membrane potential (70 ± 0.57 vs. 51.2 ± 1.26, *p < 0.01, n = 4 independent experiments), (b) intracellular adenosine triphosphate (5867 ± 166 vs. 4946 ± 272 relative light units, *p < 0.01, n = 5 independent experiments), and (c) MTT activity (1.070 ± 0.02 vs. 0.9744 ± 0.03, *p < 0.05, n = 5 independent experiments). Abbreviations as in Figure 4.