Fig. 4: Lipid-associated macrophages strikingly increase in eWAT of intermittently fasted mice.

a Chord diagram showing the interaction network of different cell subpopulations in eWAT of HFD-IF and HFD-IF-KO mice, as determined by Cellchat (interaction strength is encoded in line thickness). b UMAP projections of annotated immune cell subpopulations (Lipid-associated macrophages (LAM), proliferating LAMs (P-LAM), perivascular macrophages (PVM), collagen-expressing macrophages (CEM), non-perivascular macrophages (NPVM), B cells, and T cells) in eWAT of HFD-AL, HFD-IF, and HFD-IF-KO mice. Number of unique nuclei are indicated for each group. c Violin plots showing expression of representative marker genes of each immune cell subpopulation. d, e Pie charts (d) and bar graphs (e) showing the relative percentage of each immune cell subpopulation in eWAT of HFD-AL, HFD-IF, and HFD-IF-KO mice. f Representative electron micrograph showing a lipid droplet-containing macrophage (arrow) in close proximity to an adipocyte (right, LD, unilocular lipid droplet) in eWAT of HFD-IF mice (representative out of 10 micrographs taken for each tissue from 3 mice per group). g, h LFQ intensity derived from the proteomics dataset of general macrophage markers (g), LAM-specific MMP12, and PVM-specific ENDOB1 (h) in eWAT of HFD-AL (n = 3 mice), HFD-IF (n = 4 mice), and HFD-IF-KO (n = 3 mice) groups. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM. Significant differences were analysed by one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc tests (g, h). ***p < 0.001. Exact p values: g HFD-AL vs. HFD-IF: CD68: 0.0002, LYZ2: <0.0001, RAC2: 0.0002; HFD-IF vs. HFD-IF-KO: CD68: 0.0001, LYZ2: <0.0001, RAC2: <0.0001; h HFD-AL vs. HFD-IF: MMP12: 0.0003, HFD-IF vs. HFD-IF-KO: MMP12: 0.0005. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.