Fig. 5.

Apoptosis in HepG2 cells treated with copper and PPARβ/δ agonist. (A) Copper at concentrations of 64 µM significantly reduced HepG2 cells viability, reduction that was significantly lower in cells co-treated with 0.1 and 1 µM of GW0742. (*p<0.00005 vs control; ^†p<0.005, ^‡p<0.0001 vs copper) (B) Fas ligand (FasL) mRNA expression significantly increased to 2.5 fold in cells treated with copper, expression that was reduced dose dependently when cells were co-treated with GW0742. (*p<0.05 vs control; ^†p<0.05 vs copper) (C) Caspase 3/7 activity also increased significantly in cells treated with different concentrations of copper, activation that was significantly lower in cells co-treated with 0.1 µM of GW0742. (*p<0.05 vs control) Error bars represent SEM and p value was assessed by Student’s t test.