Figure 5.

Effects of pyruvate on the PPAR agonist-induced cell protection. Immortalized podocytes were pre-treated (72 h, as repeated treatments) with gemfibrozil (0.01–30 µM), GW0742 (0.1 nM to 0.1 µM) or pioglitazone (1 nM to 1 µM), then exposed to ND (5 h) in the absence or presence of pyruvate (2 mM). At the end of the recovery phase (24 h), the number of viable cells was assessed to determine the overall cell loss. Potentiation was calculated as protective effects of the PPAR agonist in the presence of pyruvate – protective effects of PPAR agonist alone + protective effects of pyruvate alone (22 ± 5%). Results are expressed as mean ± SEM. Mean of four experiments run in triplicate.