Autophagy Limits Endotoxemic Acute Kidney Injury and Alters Renal Tubular Epithelial Cell Cytokine Expression - Fig 4

<p>Proximal tubule-specific knockout of ATG7 increases severity of LPS-induced AKI: (A) Decreased ATG7 and LC3-II in cortical lysates from ATGKO <i>PEPCK-Cre;Atg7</i>^<i>fl/fl</i> mice compared to control <i>Atg7</i>^<i>fl/fl</i> mice. (B) Proximal tubule-specific deletion of ATG7 worsened LPS-induced AKI as reflected by higher BUN levels after 24 and 48 hours (* = p < 0.05 compared to controls at same time point). Administration of LPS induced only modest histological changes in control mice (C) with preserved architecture and only focal vacuolization (arrow), whereas ATG7KO kidneys (D) showed more diffuse indications of proximal tubular injury including substantial coarse vacuolization of proximal tubular epithelium (large arrow) with degenerating nuclei (small arrow).