Fig. 4: Prenatal vitamin D deficiency alters cellular compositions of the embryonic liver, suggesting immune cell proportion changes start during development.

a UMAP representation of single-cell RNA-seq gene expression data and cellular lineage identification of E14.5 fetal liver (n=3 per group). b The boxplots indicate prenatal vitamin D deficiency alters cellular compositions of E14.5 fetal liver. c Genes downregulated in VDD E14.5 fetal liver are enriched in the genes regulated by hematopoietic transcription factors. d Treating HPC7 cells with 1-alpha-25-dihydroxyvitamin D₃ significantly increases gene expression levels of Erg and Lmo2, suggesting these genes are regulated by VDR (n=3 per treatment group).