Genes whose expression was altered in visceral adipose tissue from 16-week old SLE <i>vs</i> CT mice.

<p>Genes whose expression was altered in visceral adipose tissue from 16-week old SLE <i>vs</i> CT mice.</p

Bar diagrams showing hepatic triglyceride content (A), plasma leptin (B), and insulin concentrations (C), and percentage of adipose visceral tissue (D), expressed as the mean±sd of 8 animals, for control and SLE mice at the weeks of sacrifice.

<p><b>E.</b> Bar diagrams showing the relative amount of P-Tyr-STAT-3 protein in liver tissue, expressed as the mean ± sd of values from 8 animals, from control (CT) and BWF1 (SLE) mice. The amount of protein loaded was confirmed by the Bradford method, and the uniformity of protein loading in each lane was assessed by determining the signal of β–actin as a control-loading protein.* <i>P</i><0.05, ** <i>P</i><0.01.</p

Genes whose expression was altered in livers from 16-week old SLE <i>vs</i> CT mice.

<p>Genes whose expression was altered in livers from 16-week old SLE <i>vs</i> CT mice.</p

Bar diagrams showing IL-2 (A), IL-17 (B), MCP-1 (C), IL-4 (D), IL-5 (E), IL-10 (F), IL-13 (G), M-CSF (H), TNFα (I), and VEGF (J) concentrations in the supernatant of stimulated cultured splenocytes (see Material and Methods), expressed as the mean±sd of 8 cultures from separate animals, for control and SLE mice at week 36. * <i>P</i><0.05, ** <i>P</i><0.01.

<p>Bar diagrams showing IL-2 (A), IL-17 (B), MCP-1 (C), IL-4 (D), IL-5 (E), IL-10 (F), IL-13 (G), M-CSF (H), TNFα (I), and VEGF (J) concentrations in the supernatant of stimulated cultured splenocytes (see Material and Methods), expressed as the mean±sd of 8 cultures from separate animals, for control and SLE mice at week 36. * <i>P</i><0.05, ** <i>P</i><0.01.</p

BFWF1 mice, aged 36 weeks, showed increased kidney pathology.

<p>Hystological analysis of individual inflammatory (<b>A</b>) and glomerular hypercellularity scores (<b>B</b>) for CT and SLE mice, evaluated as described in the Material and Methods section. Representative photographs of renal sections from control (CT) (<b>C</b>) and BWF1 (SLE) (<b>D,E</b>) mice at the age of 36 weeks (H&E staining, light microscopy, original magnification ×40). Arrows indicate mesangial glomerular proliferation (<b>D</b>) and cellular extracapillary half-moon (<b>E</b>).</p

Bar diagrams showing the levels of AKT (A), IRS-1 (B) and RPS6K (C) protein in adipose tissue, and PPARγ (D), mTOR (E), and RPS6K (F) protein in liver tissue, expressed as the mean ± sd of values from 8 animals aged 16 weeks, for control (CT) and BWF1 (SLE) mice.

<p>The amount of protein loaded was confirmed by the Bradford method, and the uniformity of protein loading in each lane was assessed by determining the signal of β–actin as a control-loading protein. A representative autoradiography from a Western blot determination of two animals per group is shown. # <i>P</i> = 0.05, * <i>P</i><0.05, ** <i>P</i><0.01, *** <i>P</i><0.001.</p

A. Bar diagram showing solid food consumption, expressed as the mean±sd of g of pelleted diet consumed per day and animal, at different times (weeks) for control and SLE mice (8 animals per group).

<p><b>B.</b> Body weight, expressed as the mean±sd in g at the beginning of the study (week 6) and for control and SLE mice (8 animals per group) at the weeks of sacrifice. * <i>P</i><0.05.</p