Fig. 5.
Effect of hepatic Surf4 silencing on liver lipids. About 12–14-week-old male Surf4Flox and Surf4LKO mice on a regular chow diet were fasted for 10 h before euthanasia. A: Electron microscopy of liver samples from male Surf4Flox and Surf4LKO mice (n = 3). Representative images were shown. B–D: Liver lipids. Lipids were extracted from liver homogenate and then subjected to measurement of TG (B), TC (C), and FFA (D) using their specific enzymatic kits (Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute) (n = 6). E–G: LC-MS/MS. Lipids were extracted from the liver using the methyl-tert-butyl ether method and applied to LC-MS/MS (n = 6). Relative quantification of lipids was calculated by dividing the area under the curve of each substance by that of the internal standard and then normalized to the protein concentrations. H: Weight of a whole liver (n = 6). I: Plasma ALT. ALT was measured according to the manufacturer's instruction (Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute) (n = 6). J and K: Oil Red O (J) and H&E staining (K) of liver sections. The images were quantified using ImageJ (J) (10 mice per group). The slides of H&E staining were assessed for lipid droplets, inflammation infiltration, and ballooning blindly (K) (n ≥ 6). Representative figures were shown. Student's t-test was used to determine the significant differences between groups. Values of all data were mean ± SD. The significance was defined as ∗P < 0.05, ∗∗P < 0.01, ∗∗∗P < 0.001, and ∗∗∗∗P < 0.0001. ns, no significant difference.