Fig. 6: Pharmacological inhibition of autophagy by CQ ameliorates fibrotic responses consistent with decreases in lipid deposition induced by UUO.

The mice were divided into the following four groups: sham operation, UUO surgery + Saline, UUO surgery + CQ (20 mg/kg/d) and UUO surgery + CQ (60 mg/kg/d). The mice were killed on day 14, and the kidney samples were collected for further experiments. a Kidney samples were collected for western blotting staining with LC3, Beclin-1, SQSTM1 and GAPDH antibodies. GAPDH sets as loading control. Schematic representation indicates band intensity of indicated proteins. The data are calculated from three independent experiments and are expressed as the mean ± SEM. *P < 0.05; ***P < 0.001. b Representative images of HE and MTS staining from three independent experiments are shown above. Scale bar: 25 μm. Schematic representation of number of health tubules based on HE and % of interstitial fibrosis based on MTS staining (n = 3). The data are expressed as the means ± SEM. n.s. means no statistical significance; *P < 0.05; ***P < 0.001. c Kidney samples were collected for western blotting staining with E-cadhein, α-SMA, caspase-3 and GAPDH antibodies. GAPDH sets as loading control. Schematic representation indicates band intensity of the indicated proteins. The data are calculated from three independent experiments and are expressed as the mean ± SEM. **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001. d Representative images of Oil Red O staining, IHC staining for α-SMA, cleaved caspase-3 and tubular TUNEL staining from three independent experiments are shown above. Scale bar: 10 μm. Schematic representation of the correlation between level of tubular Oil Red O staining and expression of α-SMA, expression of cleaved caspase-3 and TUNEL-positive cells, respectively (n = 8). n.s. no significance