Figure 1.

Intestinal mucus function in genetically obese (ob/ob) mice. A, body weight, fasting blood glucose, fasting insulin concentration, and HOMA IR in littermate-controlled lean and genetically obese (ob/ob) mice (n = 5–10 mice per genotype). B–D, mucus properties of the mucus layer in the jejunum (B), ileum (C), and distal colon (D). From left to right: the position of fluorescent 1-μm beads, obtained from confocal z-stacks were used to determine normalized penetrability of the mucus layer. Turquoise, intestinal tissue; red, 1 μm bacteria-sized beads. Thickness and growth rate (D) of the mucus layer was measured ex vivo with a micromanipulator by measuring the distance between black 10-μm beads and the epithelial surface (n = 5–10 mice per genotype). Scale bar = 50 μm. Data in A–D are presented as mean ± S.D. *, p ≤ 0.05, **, p ≤ 0.01; ***, p ≤ 0.001 (Mann-Whitney U test). For the normalized bead frequency (left), the median bead frequency distribution is shown for each mouse.