Human PBMCs Form Lipid Droplets in Response to Spike Proteins

Figures

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  Figure 1. Effects of spike variants on cytokine/chemokine gene expression. Total PBMCs from healthy donors were cultured for 6 h in the presence of 12 µg/mL of spike variants or alone. RNA was isolated and analyzed through real-time qPCR. Data are shown as mean (SD) from N = 7 independent experiments. All analyses were carried out in duplicates. p-values were calculated using one-way ANOVA comparing each condition with “Control”. A p-value below 0.05 was considered as significant.

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  Figure 2. Effects of spike proteins on lipid droplet (LD) formation. (A) PBMCs from healthy donors were cultured for 18 h alone or in the presence of spike variants. Lipid droplets were stained with Oil red O and nuclei were stained with hematoxylin. Arrows indicate lipid droplets. Images were taken at 1000-fold magnification using 100× oil immersion objective (Olympus). Scale bars indicate 5 µm. One representative image is shown out of ten images taken from three independent experiments. (B) The number of cells positive for LDs was manually counted and the percentage was calculated based on the number of cells per field. Data are presented as mean (SD). p-values were calculated using one-way ANOVA comparing each condition with “Control”. A p-value below 0.05 was considered as significant. (C) HPMECs were cultured for 18 h alone or in the presence of spike variants. Lipid droplets were stained with Oil red O and nuclei were stained with hematoxylin. Images were taken at 1000-fold magnification using 100× oil immersion objective (Leica). Scale bars indicate 10 µm. One representative image is shown out of ten images taken from three independent experiments.

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  Figure 3. Impact of spike variants on lipid gene expression. PBMCs from healthy donors were cultured for 6 h alone or in the presence of spike proteins. RNA was isolated and analyzed using real-time qPCR. Data are shown as mean (SD) from N = 3 to N = 5 independent experiments. All analyses were carried out in duplicates. p-values were calculated using one-way ANOVA comparing each condition with “Control”. A p-value below 0.05 was considered as significant.