Fig. 3: Abnormal intracellular lipid droplet accumulation in IDD. | Communications Biology

Fig. 3: Abnormal intracellular lipid droplet accumulation in IDD.

From: Palmitic acid induces lipid droplet accumulation and senescence in nucleus pulposus cells via ER-stress pathway

Fig. 3

a Workflow of metabolomic analysis. b Orthogonal partial least squares–discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) score plots for differentiating the metabolites in each group, the results indicating a clear separation between early- and advanced-stage groups. c The corresponding permutation test (200 times) for the OPLS-DA model. d Volcano plot showing the differential metabolites with a variable importance projection (VIP) > 1 and P < 0.05. e Heatmaps of the significantly differential metabolites. f Integration of MRS data and metabolomic analysis identified TG levels were significantly altered in human IDD. g The relative TG levels of NP cells determined in 41 early-stage and 55 advanced-stage IDD patients. h Single-factor linear regression analysis of the relationship between the relative TG contents and Pfirrmann grade. i Representative TEM images showing intracellular lipid droplets accumulation in advanced-stage IDD. Scale bar: 2 μm. j, k BODIPY staining for lipid droplet in patients with early- and advanced-stage IDD. Scale bar: 10 µm. The lipid droplet counts were shown in chart, n = 5. ***P < 0.001.

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