Cardiac Autonomic Neuropathy as a Result of Mild Hypercaloric Challenge in Absence of Signs of Diabetes: Modulation by Antidiabetic Drugs

Figure 9

The effect of HC feeding and treatment with metformin or pioglitazone on inflammatory cytokine expression in perivascular adipose, ventricular, and brainstem tissues. (a) Changes in IL-1β (left) and TNF-α (right) mRNA levels in perivascular adipose tissue. Values were determined in triplicates of mRNA extracts from five different animals. (b) Representative Western blots showing changes in IL-1β expression levels in ventricular tissue (right) and brainstem tissue (left) in response to HC feeding and metformin or pioglitazone treatment. The depicted blots are representative of experiments performed on protein extracts from tissues harvested from three rats in each group. The bar graphs represent comparison of the normalized intensity of the protein bands. and # denote versus corresponding values in control or HC-fed rats, respectively. Statistical significance was determined by ANOVA followed by Dunnett post hoc test. Depicted values represent mean ± SEM.

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