Figure 2

Effect of hepatic autophagy inactivation on hepatic mitochondrial function and morphology in critically ill mice. Hepatic citrate synthase activity (a), mitochondrial complex I activity (b) and mitochondrial complex V activity (c) are shown for healthy pair-fed WT mice (white box plots), healthy pair-fed KO mice (dotted box plots), critically ill WT mice (gray box plots) and critically ill KO mice (hatched box plots) at day 1 and day 3. Box plots depict medians with interquartile ranges (IQR) and whiskers are drawn to the furthest point within 1.5 × IQR from the box. n = 10–16 per group. Representative transmission electron microscopy photographs of the liver (d) are shown for healthy pair-fed WT mice (upper left panel), healthy pair-fed KO mice (upper right panel), critically ill WT mice (lower left panel) and critically ill KO mice (lower right panel) at day 3 after induction of critical illness. Arrowheads represent dilated endoplasmic reticulum, whereas the star represents a morphologically abnormal mitochondrion. The scale bar represents 1 µm. KO: Mx1-Cre ⁺ Atg7 ^F/F mouse; WT: Mx1-Cre ⁻ Atg7 ^F/F mouse.