Figure 2.

Ablation of gut microbiota improves obesity-induced insulin resistance in hamsters. The hamsters were fed a 60% high-fat diet and given vehicle or antibiotics for 4 weeks (n=5 hamsters/group). On the fourth week, glucose tolerance tests (GTT) and insulin tolerance tests (ITT) were performed. (A) GTT; (B) Area under the curve (AUC); (C) ITT. (D) Fasting glucose levels; (E) Fasting insulin levels; (F) HOMA-IR; (G) The ratios of fat mass to body weight in subcutaneous adipose tissue (sWAT), epididymal adipose tissue (eWAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT); (H) The relative expression of thermogenic gene mRNAs in the sWAT. Data are presented as the mean±SEM, n=5 hamsters/group. ^*P<0.05, ^**P<0.01 versus vehicle by two-tailed Student׳s t-test.