Figure 7.

Autophagy induction by spermidine protects from the detrimental effects of high-fat diet in wild-type mice. (a) Weight curves of untreated and spermidine-treated WT mice (spd) fed with high-fat diet (HF) without any supplementation in drinking water. Bar graph shows area under the curves (AUC) (n=10). (b) Intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test (IPGTT), and (c) intraperitoneal insulin tolerance test (IPITT), in untreated and spermidine-treated high-fat fed WT mice. Bar graph shows area under the curves (AUC). (d) Left, representative pictures of adipocytes from H&E sections of white adipose tissue in untreated and spermidine-treated high-fat fed WT mice. Right, quantification of the data. (e) Left, representative pictures from H&E sections (left panels) and Oil Red staining (right panels) of livers from untreated and spermidine-treated high-fat fed WT mice. Right, quantification of the data. (f) Left, immuno-blotting analyses of ATG4B, LC3B and SQSTM1/p62 proteins in white adipose tissue extracts from either vehicle-treated or spermidine-treated WT mice subjected to high-fat diet, showing the effective increase of both ATG4B expression and autophagic flux in spermidine-treated mice. Right, quantification of the data. Data represent mean±SEM. Left, graph bars showing quantification of the data depicted in immuno-blotting panels. *P-value<0.05. Scale bars, 30 μm.