A: double immunofluorescence staining for TOM20 and LC3B (× 400); A1, A2, A3, A4: CON group; A5, A6, A7, A8: KOA group; A9, A10, A11, A12: Acu group; A1, A5, A9: DAPI staining; A2, A6, A10: TOM20 staining; A3, A7, A11: LC3B staining; A4, A8, A12: merge of TOM20 and LC3B staining; B: level of ATP; C: colocalization coefficient; D, E: analysis of TOM20 and LC3B fluorescence intensity. CON group: no modeling or no intervention; KOA group: 6 weeks of modeling followed by no intervention; Acu group: 6 weeks of modeling followed by acupotomy intervention for 4 weeks. ATP: adenosine triphosphate; PCC: Pearson's correlation coefficient; TOM20: translocase of the outer membrane 20; LC3B: microtubule-associated protein-1 light chain-3B; CON: control; KOA: knee osteoarthritis; Acu: acupotomy; DAPI: 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole. The data were presented as the mean ± standard deviation (n = 6). aP < 0.01 compared with the control group; bP < 0.05, cP < 0.01, compared with the KOA group.