Fig. 4

LST treatment facilitated the induction of mitophagy in the kidney tubule of DKD mice. A: TEM revealed autophagic vacuoles (yellow arrows) in kidney tubule of all subsets. The DKD subset had fewer vacuoles than the CON subset, but this was restored with LST treatment. B: A histogram quantitatively analyzed the number of tubular autophagic vacuoles. C: TEM showed mitophagy in renal tubules, with the DKD subset displaying significant autophagosome accumulation (red arrows indicate autophagosomes engulfing mitochondria). D: A histogram quantitatively analyzed the proportion of kidney tubules containing autophagosome. E: High-power TEM images show autophagosomes in the kidney tubule of DKD subset, highlighting areas where mitochondria are being or have been phagocytized (yellow box in Fig. 2C). Results are depicted as mean ± SE, *P < 0.05, vs. CON subset; # P < 0.05, vs. DKD subset. n = 8