Figure 5. Hepatic pIgR overexpression restores gut IgA levels and ameliorates steatohepatitis in pIgR^−/− mice.

A) Schematic of study layout. Female pIgR^−/− mice received a single intravenous injection of GFP-expressing AAV8 control vector (red) or pIgR-expressing AAV8 (blue). Female wildtype littermates received GFP-expressing AAV8 control vector (grey). After 2 weeks, mice were placed on Lieber-DeCarli diet for 8 weeks followed by single gavage of ethanol.

B) Fecal IgA levels at the end of the study.

C) Plasma IgA levels at the end of the study.

D) Liver to body weight ratio.

E) Plasma ALT levels.

F) Representative pictures of H&E staining of liver sections (20x magnification).

G) Hepatic triglyceride levels, normalized to liver protein content.

H) Quantification of immunohistochemical staining for lipids using Oil Red O.

I) Representative images showing Oil Red O staining of liver sections.

J-L) mRNA levels of indicated genes (Cxcl1, Cxcl2, Ccr2) in whole liver tissue of mice as shown in Figure 5A, assessed by qPCR. Data are shown relative to the control-treated wildtype mice after normalization to 18S.

M) Plasma LPS levels at the study endpoint.

Data shown as mean ± SEM of n=13–15 mice per group from 5 independent experiments. * indicates corrected p≤0.05, ** corrected p≤0.01, *** corrected p≤0.001. Exact p-values are provided in Table S5.