Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Nov 10.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Obes (Lond). 2016 May 10;40(9):1424–1434. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2016.90

Figure 1. Lentiviral cathelicidin over-expression reduced fat mass and increased lean mass in high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice.

Figure 1

(A) Experimental plan of animal experiments. C57BL/6 mice were fed with high-fat diet for a total of 11 weeks. Streptozotocin was injected intraperitoneally to induce diabetes on week 8. Cathelicidin expressing lentivirus particles were also injected at the same time via tail veins. Details are described in Materials and Methods section. (B) Cathelicidin (Camp) mRNA expression of mouse mesenteric fat was determined by real-time RT-PCR. High-fat diet-treated diabetic mice had significantly reduced Camp mRNA expression (p=0.0001), compared to regular diet-treated non-diabetic mice. The mesenteric fat Camp mRNA expression of cathelicidin expressing group was significantly higher than those of control lentivirus expressing group (p=0.0001), showing the high expression efficacy of the lentivirus. (C) Body weight of the mice at week 11. High-fat diet-treated non-diabetic mice had significantly higher body weight (p=0.0002 and p=0.0007) than those treated with regular diet. Body weights of high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice were similar to regular diet-treated normal mice. Lentiviral cathelicidin overexpression did not affect their body weights. (D) Fat mass of the live mice at week 11 was measured by EchoMRI machine. High-fat diet treatment increased the fat mass of both non-diabetic and diabetic mice. Lentiviral cathelicidin overexpression significantly decreased the fat mass of the high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice but not high-fat diet-treated non-diabetic mice. (E) Lean mass of the live mice at week 11 was measured by EchoMRI machine. High-fat diet treatment decreased the lean mass of both non-diabetic and diabetic mice. Lentiviral cathelicidin overexpression significantly increased the fat mass of the high-fat diet-treated diabetic mice but not high-fat diet-treated non-diabetic mice. (F) Fasting blood glucose levels at week 10. High-fat diet treatment increased fasting blood glucose levels that were further exacerbated by streptozotocin- induced diabetes. Lentiviral cathelicidin overexpression did not affect the hyperglycemia. n=6 mice per group.