Figure 7

Caspase-2-deficient mice are protected from fibroductular reaction induced by Western diet (a). Fibrosis evaluation in the same mice as Figure 2: representative liver sections for Sirius Red staining with morphometric quantification (upper left panels), and liver hydroxyproline quantification (upper right panel). Representative liver sections for immunohistochemistry for stellate cells markers (αSMA, desmin) with morphometric quantification (lower left panels) and qRT-PCR in whole liver for collagen-1a and desmin gene expression (right lower panels). (b) Ductular reaction evaluated with immunohistochemistry for K19 and Sox-9 with morphometry (left panels), qRT-PCR for K7 and alpha-fetoprotein (aFP) (right panels). Scale bar, 100 μm. The errors reported represent mean±S.E.M., normalized for WT chow diet mice and graphed as mean±S.E.M. *P<0.05, **P<0.01 versus chow diet; ^#P<0.05, ^##P<0.01 versus WT. Interaction, assessed by two-way ANOVA, indicates that the effect of diet was different between genotypes