Figure 4.

ICOSL modulates progression to liver fibrosis of experimental MASH. Wild type (WT) and ICOSL deficient (ICOSL ko) mice were fed with either control or Western diet (WD) diets for 24 weeks and the severity of steatohepatitis was investigated by: (A) Haematoxylin/eosin (HE) staining of liver sections (Magnification 200x); (B) Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) release; (C) liver triglyceride content; (D) hepatic mRNA levels of inflammatory markers CD11b and IL-12p40. The extent of hepatic fibrosis was evaluated by measuring (E) fibrosis markers α1-procollagen, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and Transforming Growth Factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and (F) liver collagen deposition as detected by Sirius Red staining (SR). The transcripts for RT-PCR values are expressed as fold increase of 2^-ΔCT over the relative control samples. The values in the panels B-F refer to 5-8 animals per group and the boxes include the values within 25^th and 75^th percentile, while the horizontal bars represent the median. The extremities of the vertical bars (10^th-90^th percentile) include 80% of the values.