Figure 2.

Δ⁹-Tetrahydrocannabinol and JWH-015 increase intracellular neutral lipid content in HCC cells. (a) HepG2 cells were incubated in the presence of increasing concentrations of THC or JWH-015 for 24 h, and intracellular neutral lipid content was measured by Oil Red O stain as indicated in the Materials and Methods section, and normalized to cell viability performed by MTT. Data are the mean±S.E. of three different experiments performed in duplicate. (b) HepG2 cells were treated with 8 μM THC or 8 μM JWH-015 for 24 h and neutral lipid was detected by confocal immunofluorescence. Nuclei were stained with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole. The image is representative of three different experiments. (c) The binding capacity of JWH-015 to PPARγ was investigated using the HeLa reporter cell lines, HG₅LN GAL4-PPARγ. HeLa cells were treated with JWH-015 (8 μM) and binding to PPARγ was estimated by luciferase activity (relative light units normalized against the reference compound BRL49653) and expressed as percentage relative to 1 μM of the classical agonist Rosiglitazone (Rosi)