Figure 7.

Inhibition of phospho-STAT3 and miR-21 expression by metformin long-term therapy protected mice against age dependent liver steatosis. (a) 5 weeks aged C57/BL6 mice were daily treated with either water or metformin (50 mpk) for 72 weeks. At the end of treatment (77 weeks) FFPE livers were stained with Hematoxylin/Eosin. Images A-B: 5 weeks aged mice before treatment; images C-D: 77 weeks old control mice (H20); images E-F: 77 weeks old mice metformin treated. (b) Dot plot showing body weight of mice treated as in (a). (c) Phospho-STAT3 immunohistochemistry (IHC) on liver sections of mice treated as in (a). Left panels: positive IHC cells are stained brown color, images A-B control mice (H20); images C-D metformin treated mice. Right panel: % number of phospho-STAT3 positive cells (6 fields for 4 non-consecutive stained sections per sample were scored). d) Boxplot representing q-PCR quantification of miR-21 expression in liver tissue from 77 weeks mice treated as in (a) (H₂0 and Metformin) and 5 weeks mice (young) at the beginning of treatment. SnoRNA202 was used as endogenous control to standardize miRNAs expression. Results are expressed as 10^−DCt (Asterisks indicate p-value).