Figure 3.

Acute exercise increases hepatic mitophagic flux and mitochondrial ubiquitination. Protein content for mitophagy markers microtubule-associated proteins 1A/1B light chain 3B (LC3-II) (A) and p62 (B), and ubiquitin (C) were examined in liver mitochondrial isolates from wild-type (WT) female mice 0 and 2 h after sedentary (SED) or treadmill running (EX) and injected with either SAL or LEU. All quantified proteins (E) were normalized to total protein utilizing amido black staining. Qualitative visual confirmation of mitophagy was obtained via confocal imaging of livers from WT animals exposed to the Ad-Cox8-GFP-mCherry fluorescent mitophagy reporter (D). E, P < 0.05 main effect for exercise; T, P < 0.05 main effect for time (2 h vs. 0 h); E × T, P < 0.05 exercise by time interaction; e, P < 0.05 within condition exercise effect (vs. SED); t, P < 0.05 within condition time effect (vs. 0 h).