Fig. 7

Effects of SORBS2 silencing on lipid accumulation and cholesterol efflux in OxLDL-induced THP-1 macrophages. A Total cholesterol (TC), free cholesterol (FC), and cholesterol ester (CE) levels were measured in culture supernatant from OxLDL-activated macrophages treated with Si-NC or Si-SORBS2 (n = 5) using the Amplex Red Cholesterol Assay Kit. B Representative images of Oil Red O-stained differentiated THP1 cells in each cell group. C Quantitative analysis of Oil Red O-stained results. D–G Western blotting was performed to quantify ABCA1, ABCG1, and PPARγ protein expression levels in THP-1 derived macrophages. The histogram reports the mean ± SEM of the densitometric scans for the protein bands from three experiments (normalized by comparison with GAPDH). * P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01, and *** P < 0.001 compared with the control group (no Ox-LDL treatment); # P < 0.05, ^## P < 0.01, ^###P < 0.001 compared with the corresponding controls (OxLDL at 50 µg/mL)