Figure 7.

Effect of diet and exercise on endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and apoptosis. Immunoblots (upper panel) and quantification (lower panel) of proteins expressed in livers from control, NAFL, NASH, and NASH + EXE groups. Comparisons were made between the control and NAFL groups at 12 weeks, and between the NASH and NASH + EXE groups treated for 20 weeks. Binding immunoglobulin protein (BiP) was not different between groups. X-box binding protein (XBP-1) was lowered in NAFL vs. control and remained very low in both NASH groups. C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP) expression was higher in NAFL than in controls and increased further in the NASH groups. The ratio of Bcl-2 associated X protein (Bax) to Bcl-2 was elevated in NAFL vs. control but was not significantly changed by exercise. Vinculin served as the loading control. Groups are as described in Figure 1 (unpaired t-test; *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.001). For more details of Western blots, please view Figure S2.