Fig. 3: FGF21 treatment induced autophagy in chondrocytes.

The chondrocytes were incubated with 100 or 200 ng/ml of TBHP only, or TBHP plus FGF21. A, B Shown is the content of Lamp1, LC3, and P62 in chondrocytes as treated above. C Shown are the TEM images of autophagic vesicles in chondrocytes (asterisk: autophagosome with double-membrane structure; triangle: autophagolysosome with single membrane structure) (scale bar: 0.5 µm). D, E The representative LC3-positive autophagic vesicles were detected by immunofluorescence staining (scale bar: 20 μm). The data in the figures are the averages ± S.D. Significant differences between the treatment and control groups are indicated as **P < 0.01 and *P < 0.05, n = 3.