Fig. 5.

Hepatic Arg2 attenuates hepatic steatosis and inflammation in db/db mice. a Representative hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained (top) and Oil Red O-stained (bottom) liver sections from AAV8-Control (left) and AAV8-Arg2 (right) db/db mice at 10 weeks of age. Scale bar, 100 μm. b Triglyceride, cholesterol, non-esterified fatty acid, and LDL-C contents in liver of AAV8-Control and AAV8-Arg2 injected db/db mice (n = 8 mice per group). c Serum ALT (left), AST (middle), and albumin (right) in db/db AAV8-Control and AAV8-Arg2 mice (n = 7 mice per group). d, e Hepatic mRNA expression of the indicated genes involved in de novo lipogenesis (d), and fatty acid uptake and export (e) in db/db AAV8-Control and AAV8-Arg2 mice (n = 8 mice per group). Gene expression was normalized to 36B4 mRNA levels. f Inflammatory mediator mRNA expression by qPCR in liver from db/db AAV8-Control and AAV8-Arg2 mice (n = 8 mice per group). For box plots, the midline represents the median, boxes represent the interquartile range and whiskers show the full range of values. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.005, ****P < 0.0001; n.s., not significant; relative to control treatment, by two-tailed Student’s t-test