Fig. 1
miR-27a promotes the intracellular survival of Mtb through autophagy. a–c 2D cluster analysis across miRNA probe (right) and subjects (bottom). Heatmap shows downregulated (green) and upregulated (red) miRNA from: (a) PBMCs of healthy donors (n = 3) and pulmonary TB patients (n = 3); (b) lung of the control or mice (n = 3) aerosol-infected with ~200 CFU Mtb H37Rv for 0 and 28 days; (c) murine primary peritoneal macrophages infected with H37Rv (MOI = 5) for indicated times. d–i macrophages pre-treated with NC, miR-27a-M (mimic), or miR-27a-I (inhibitor) were infected with Mtb for indicated times, and then subjected to (d, e) CFU detection; (f, g) Immunoblot (IB) of lysates; (h) confocal analysis of mRFP-GFP-LC3B spots, Bar, 5 μM. (i) Quantification of average number of LC3 puncta in each cell. (j–l) WT or miR-27a-/- macrophages infected with Mtb, and then subjected to (j) IB of lysates; (k) confocal analysis of mRFP-GFP-LC3B spots; Bar, 5 μM. l Quantification of average number of LC3 puncta in each cell. (d, e, i, l) **p < 0.01 by the unpaired t-test. Data are from three independent experiments with biological duplicates in each (d, e, i, l; mean ± s.e.m. of n = 3 duplicates) or representative of three independent experiments (f, g, h, j, k)
