Figure 6.

Sexual dimorphism in neuronal subtype injury responses. (A) Transcriptomic analyses in primary afferents reveal no clear interaction of sex and injury 4 weeks after SNI. (B) Euler plot of DEGs using an additive model contrasting sex and injury differences. (C) Line plots of DEGs shared across at least 2 subtypes. (D–H) Across subtypes, DEGs from this additive modelling (“add”) appear to be driven partly by sex differences in basal expression levels (“sex”), as well as some overlap with genes generally regulated in injury (“injury”). (D) General nociceptors. (E) PEP nociceptors. (F) NP nociceptors. (G) C-LTMRs. (H) Aβ-RA + Aδ-LTMRs. (I) Example volcano plots for the interaction of sex and injury for Aβ-RA + Aδ-LTMRs, with apeglm and ashr shrinkage. (J) 42% of regulated genes are shared across our interaction and additive models (magenta) which are not regulated with apeglm. Cont, contralateral; DEGs, differentially expressed genes; Ipsi, ipsilateral; LFC, log₂ fold changes; LTMR, low-threshold mechanoreceptors; NP, nonpeptidergic; PEP, peptidergic; SNI, spared nerve injury.