Fig. 9: Roles of Lactobacillus–bile acids–vitamin A/E–NHE11 axis in chronic stress-induced asthenozoospermia.
From: Chronic stress drives oligoasthenozoospermia via gut microbiota-vitamin-Sting1/Slc9c2 axis
a PCA score plot showing transcriptomic separation between the CFSS and sham FS groups based on RNA-seq data from corpus epididymal tissues. b Heatmap depicting hierarchical clustering of DEGs in epididymal tissues from CFSS and sham FS rats. c Volcano plot showing DEGs between the two groups. d Relative expression of Slc9c2 mRNA in epididymal sperm of the two groups (n = 6 rats per group). e Relative expression of NHE11 protein in epididymal sperm of the two groups (n = 4 rats per group). f Representative immunofluorescence images of NHE11 and peanut agglutinin (PNA) staining in epididymal sperm of CFSS and sham FS rats (n = 3 biological replicates per group). Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars = 20 µm. g, h Relative expression of NHE11 protein (g) and representative images showing the immunofluorescence staining with NHE11 (h) in epididymal sperm of vehicle- and Lactobacillus-treated CFFS rats (n = 3 rats or 3 biological replicates per group). Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars = 20 µm. i, j Relative expression of NHE11 protein (i) and representative images showing the immunofluorescence staining with NHE11 (j) in epididymal sperm of vehicle- and vitamin A/E-treated CFFS rats (n = 3 rats or 3 biological replicates per group). Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI (blue). Scale bars = 20 µm. Data are presented as mean ± S.E.M. Two-tailed unpaired t test with Benjamini-Hochberg correction for (c). Two-tailed unpaired t test for (d), (e), (g) and (i). The exact p values are presented in the figures as indicated. Source data are provided in the Source Data file.
