Research Paper Volume 13, Issue 4 pp 5650—5673
Synergistic inflammatory signaling by cGAS may be involved in the development of atherosclerosis
Figure 1. Mitochondrial DNA damage in atherogenesis. ApoE -/- mice were fed a western-type diet or a chow diet for 16 weeks. Immunofluorescence was used to analyze aortic root plaques. (A) Oxidative damage to DNA was measured by immunostaining of 8-OH-dG (green) (n = 6, Scale bars: 100μm for 20× images and 10μm for 80× images). Quantitative analysis of 8-OH-dG+ cells in selected areas showed that strong 8-OH-dG staining was discovered mainly in mitochondria (TOMM20, red) compared with nuclei (DAPI, blue) (P = 0.037 in the chow diet group, and P = 0.018 in the western-type diet group). (B) The plasma dsDNA levels of atherosclerosis patients and volunteers were analyzed using a PicoGreen ® dsDNA quantitative kit. ***P< 0.001. Data are means ± SD. 8-OH-dG, 8-Oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine; SD, standard deviation.