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Fig. 8 | Cell & Bioscience

Fig. 8

From: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease experiences accumulation of hepatic liquid crystal associated with increasing lipophagy

Fig. 8

Expression of MAP1LC3A implicates lipophagy in HiF diet induced NAFLD. A Control mouse hepatocytes exhibit strong MAP1LC3A activity throughout the liver with a slightly muted expression near vasculature and bile ducts (panel a to c). These control livers exhibit no optical activity under polarization microscopy (panel d) and contain no large vacuoles indicating hepatic lipid droplet accumulation (panel e). MAP1LC3A expression is reduced in HiF diet induced NAFLD mouse livers (panel f to h). In these livers, massive Maltese cross birefringent LC-HLDs (panel i) are seen in locations corresponding to empty vacuoles found on H&E stain (panel j). MAP1LC3A expression was not as dramatically reduced in patient NAFLD and retained some expression near the bile network (panels k to m). These patient NAFLD samples were also optically active, with both INA and FBA (panel n) birefringent particles occupying space seen as empty vacuoles on H&E (panel o). Bars are 100 μm in length. Bars in panel A are all 100 μm in length. B Quantified comparison of MAP1LC3A expression via immunostaining is shown. Mouse NAFLD samples showed significantly reduced MAP1LC3A expression (***p < 0.0001). C ImageJ analysis of MAP1LC3A distribution in livers organized as proximity to the central vein (CV) or lobule boundary (LD), generated with ImageJ interactive 3D surface plot. Top row shows MAP1LC3A expression in a control liver, middle row shows MAP1LC3A expression in a HiF diet induced NAFLD mouse liver, and bottom row shows MAP1LC3A expression in a patient NAFLD liver. D Western expression of Beclin 1, another autophagy marker, was used as secondary confirmation of autophagy deactivation. Both Beclin 1 expression is significantly down-regulated in the mouse model (mNAFLD) livers in comparison to control liver and normalized to β-actin internal control (**p < 0.01). All statistical analyses were conducted using triplicate data

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