Figure 2. Proteobacteria RNA expression are correlated with host immune responses in MS brains.

(a) Massively parallel RNA sequencing (RNAseq) of MS and nonMS white matter showed a high proportion of Proteobacteria-like sequences in all human brains. Progressive MS patients (P-MS) displayed limited molecular diversity while relapsing-remitting (RR-MS) patients showed increased Actinobacteria-like sequence detection compared to nonMS patients’ brains. (b) Distribution of sequence tags derived from bacteriophage by host phylum shows greater phage diversity in MS white matter. (c) Using qRT-PCR host gene expression was measured as relative fold change (RFC) in cerebral white matter from P-MS with low Actinobacteria gene expression (n = 3), RR-MS with high Actinobacteria gene expression (n = 3), compared to nonMS (n = 6); patients with the low Actinobacteria/P-MS group showed increased host immune gene expression.