Fig. 4

Gene expressions in the liver of CrebH^−/− mice overlap with those expressed differentially in mice with PSC. A Volcano plot of genes significantly altered between DDC (n = 3) vs. control groups (n = 3) and CrebH^−/−-DSS (n = 3) vs. WT-DSS (n = 3). B Heatmap (left, RNA-seq data) showing top 20 genes significantly upregulated in the liver of CrebH^−/−-DSS mice compared with WT-DSS mice; several genes were validated by qRT-PCR. WT (n = 5) and CrebH^−/− (n = 5) mice. *P < 0.05 or **P < 0.01. Acot3, acyl-CoA thioesterase 3; Cyp4a10, cytochrome P450 4A10; Cyp4a14, cytochrome P450 omega-hydroxylase 4a14; Fabp4, fatty acid-binding protein 4; Mcam, melanoma cell adhesion molecule. C Comparison of transcriptome analysis of DEGs between CrebH^−/−-DSS vs. WT-DSS and DDC vs. control groups. Venn diagram of overlapping differentially upregulated (upper) and downregulated (lower) gene expression. D Top 10 enriched in “molecular function” of the RNA-seq dataset. GO enrichment of DEGs was analyzed using the WEB-based Gene SeT AnaLysis Toolkit (www.webgestalt.org). E Heatmap of genes enriched in extracellular matrix binding category; several genes were validated by qRT-PCR. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. Adamts15, ADAM metallopeptidase with thrombospondin type 1 motif 15; Anxa2, annexin A2; Ctss, cathepsin S; Dcn, decorin; Itgb3, integrin subunit beta 3; Lgals1, galectin 1. Statistical analysis was performed using a two-tailed Student’s t-test. Error bars represent the mean ± SEM