Fig. 1. Baseline confirmation for skeletal myocyte differentiation and Dgat2 expression.

Mouse-derived C2C12 cells were cultured and harvested before and at one, four, and seven days after reaching 90–100% confluence, and (A) the representative images of cell morphology (20x) during the differentiation, (B) the mRNA expression of Dgat2 were obtained. The abundance of Dgat2 in response to (C) insulin or dexamethasone, (D) high glucose (25 mM glucose), and (E, F) high fatty acids (oleic acid or palmitic acid) was measured in differentiated skeletal myotubes four days after confluence. Gene expression values on all investigated days were normalized to the expression value of (B) day one, (C) no insulin control, (D) basal glucose (5 mM), or (E, F) BSA treatment. The data are expressed as the means ± SEM. Superscripts * and # indicate p < 0.05, vs. day one (graph B), no insulin (graph C) or BSA-only treatment (graph E, F) for Dgat1 and Dgat2, respectively. * p < 0.05 vs. basal glucose (graph D). Ins, insulin; Dex, dexamethasone; BSA, bovine serum albumin; O, oleic acid; P, palmitic acid.