Fig. 5

High glucose and palmitic acid exposure stimulates pro-inflammatory response in primary microglial cultures. a–f Responses of cultured microglia exposed to conditions mimicking T2D; utilizing glucose and fatty acid levels find in T2D vs. healthy patients. High fat (HF; 1.2 mM palmitic acid) alone and with elevated glucose (HG; 16.7 mM) induces microglial transformation towards activated amoeboid morphology (a), stimulates microglial proliferation (b), triggers release of nitric oxide (NO) (c), production of superoxide (SO) (d), and alters pro-inflammatory (e) and anti-inflammatory (b) cytokine release profiles in primary microglial cell cultures. ^# p ≤ 0.05 compared to control (NG), *p ≤ 0.05 as indicated, n = 3-6