Figure 5
Longitudinal assessment of miRNAs and lung function association in AAV-TGFβ1 and Bleomycin induced fibrosis. Small RNAs were applied to next-generation sequencing analysis. (a) Number of differentially expressed miRNAs over time. (b) Correlation plots for miRNAs showing differential expression either exclusively in one model or commonly in both models, as defined by expression cutoffs (log2FC = 0.6). The coefficient of determination (R2) is show for each set of genes under the graphs. (c) The top 10 miRNAs most strongly anti-/correlated with the decline in lung function (Fig. 1i) are shown together with their log2 fold change in expression on day 21 and the expression pattern over all five time points. The mean Pearson correlation coefficient r over both models is also depicted. (d) Staged selection strategy to identify novel miRNA candidates for further characterization. rho = Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. For further details, see results and methods.
