Figure 3.

Biological pathways affected upon dendritic cell stimulation with the two antigen delivery systems. Genes differentially expressed upon stimulation with (A) E2 and (B) fd-scαDEC are depicted. “Extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction” and “Toll-like receptor signaling” are illustrated as the most perturbed pathways upon E2 and fd-scαDEC exposure, respectively. Heat maps (upper panel) of differentially expressed genes in BMDCs treated with PBS (UNTR_1 and UNTR_2) then pulsed with E2 (E2_1 and E2_2) and fd-scαDEC (DEC_1 and DEC_2) are depicted along with graphical representations of the most significant Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways (lower panel). In the heat maps, the degree of differential expression is indicated by a three-color code (down-regulated genes in green, up-regulated in red, and those with little-to-no variation in black). In each panel, bar graphs report the results of the validation analysis by qReal-Time PCR. Expression data are reported as a relative expression compared to BMDCs stimulated with (A) fd-scαDEC-205 and (B) E2 system.