Fig. 2: Oral transfer of faecal miRNAs from patients with HE exacerbated the disease.

a, b The effects of faecal transfer on HE. a Schematic design. Faeces were collected from patients with HE and CHB, and orally gavage to recipient mice for 7 consecutive days. After that, mice were injected with TAA for inducing HE. b Serum ammonia level, brain water content, transcripts of TNF-α, IL-1β in the cerebral cortex. c, d The effects of the transfer of heat-resident faecal composition on HE. c Schematic design. Faeces of patients with HE and CHB were heat-inactivated and orally gavage to recipient mice. d Serum ammonia level, brain water content, transcripts of TNF-α, IL-1β in the cerebral cortex. e–j The effects of faecal miRNAs transfer on HE. e Schematic design. Mice were transplanted with small RNA extracted from faeces of patients with HE and CHB. f Serum ammonia level, brain water content, transcripts of TNF-α, IL-1β in the cerebral cortex. g Histopathological analysis of liver sections; representative pictures of H&E staining are shown. Scale bars, 2 mm. h Serum ALT, AST levels. i Immunofluorescence staining of Iba1 and GFAP in the cerebral cortex; representative images are shown. Red: Iba1; green: GFAP; blue: DAPI. Scale bars, 50 µm. j Statistics form of i. N = 6 per group. Data are represented as mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001, determined by unpaired Student’s t-test (b, d, f, h, j).