Fig. 5.

Lower inflammation profile in hIAPP-TgxBACE2-KO islets. Fold induction of mRNA expression (related to WT animals) of selected genes in pancreatic islets from the four experimental groups. Chop (a) and Tgfbi (b) gene expression were not significantly modulated in any group. Gene expression of Ccl2 inflammation marker was significantly enhanced in hIAPP-Tg islets, but the increase was reversed to control values in hIAPP-TgxBACE2-KO animals (c). Cytokine Il-1β (d) was not significantly modulated in any model, while the inflammation-related gene Txnip (e) and the macrophage activation markers Lyz1 (f) and Mpeg1 (g) were increased in hIAPP-Tg islets and reverted in hIAPP-TgxBACE2-KO islets. Tbp-1 expression was used as a housekeeping gene. h. CD68 protein expression was quantified by immunostaining in whole pancreas slices. Results are represented as CD68-positive spots inside the pancreatic islet corrected by the total number of islets. Bars are the mean of triplicates from at least three independent experiments ±SEM. *p < 0.05