Fig. 2.

Leptin promotes BMSCs mitochondrial fusion under hypoxia conditions. (A) BMSCs (cocultured with leptin) stained with Mito‐tracker red exhibited an active mitochondrial fusion in hypoxia conditions and the effects of leptin on protein expression of mitochondrial fusion related‐proteins Mfn2, OPA1 under normoxia or hypoxia were clearly quite distinct. (B) Mitochondrial ultrastructures were analyzed by elect micrograph with representative images showing significant changes in mitochondrial length after hypoxic preconditioning (HP) compared with those pretreated with the solvent alone (magnification was set at ×15 000); scale bar, 500 nm. (C) Protein expression implicated mitochondrial homeostasis including fusion and fission were assessed by western blot for BMSCs‐control‐Normoxia (BMSCs cultured under normal oxygen condition) and BMSCs‐control‐hypoxia (BMSCs cultured under hypoxic condition), quantified by densitometry using β‐tubulin as the control. (D) The expression of proteins that control mitochondrial fusion and fission was analyzed, including the mitochondrial fusion protein Mfn1/Mfn2 and mitochondrial fission proteins DRP1. An increase in mitochondrial fusion proteins Mfn1/Mfn2. The expression of mitochondrial fission proteins DRP1 was reduced significantly. Representative microscope images are magnified 600× (scale bar = 10 μm). Error bars indicate standard error (n = 3); one‐way ANOVA was used for statistical analysis, *P < 0.05.