Fig. 1.

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is activated in subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese human subjects. Subcutaneous adipose tissue expression of the ER chaperone HSPA5 from 86 individuals over a range of body mass indexes (BMIs) from 19 to 40 kg/m² shows significant increase from lean to overweight and obese individuals. Raw expression values of HSPA5 were normalized to 18S RNA. Data are presented as means ± SD of normalized HSPA5 expression for 3 BMI classes: lean (BMI <25 kg/m²), overweight (BMI ≥25 kg/m² and BMI ≤30 kg/m²), or obese (BMI >30 kg/m²). P = statistical significance determined from Mann-Whitney U-test.