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. 2019 Nov 11;8(11):1418. doi: 10.3390/cells8111418

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Enhanced adipose interferon regulatory factor-5 (IRF5) expression in obesity correlates with body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, age, and levels of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Adipose tissue IRF5 gene expression was determined in 53 non-diabetic individuals grouped as six lean, 18 overweight, and 29 obese using real-time RT-PCR. IRF5 protein expression was determined in six lean, eight overweight, and eight obese individuals using immunohistochemistry (IHC) as described in Materials and Methods. The data (mean ± SEM) show that (A) IRF5 adipose gene expression was elevated in overweight (P = 0.05) and obese (P = 0.008) compared with lean individuals. (B) As expected, IRF5 protein expression (arbitrary units) was also higher in obese (P = 0.004) compared with lean subjects; however, the difference between overweight and lean individuals could not attain statistical significance (P = 0.18). Furthermore, IRF5 adipose gene expression associated positively with clinical markers including (C) BMI (r = 0.37, P = 0.008), (D) body fat percentage, age (r = 0.51, P = 0.0004), and (E) HbA1c (r = 0.41, P = 0.02). (F) Adipose IRF gene and protein expression was found to be mutually concordant (r = 0.65, P = 0.001). The asterisks * and ** represent significance levels of P ≤ 0.05 and P < 0.01, respectively.