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. 2020 Mar 10;11:142. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.00142

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Decreased expression of miR-146a in follicular hyperplastic myasthenia gravis (MG) thymuses and increased transcriptional levels of its target genes, IRAK1, TRAF6, c-REL, and ICOS. (A) Real-time PCR analysis of miR-146a levels in normal thymuses (n = 10) and follicular hyperplastic thymuses from MG patients classified based on treatment before thymectomy in untreated or treated only with cholinesterase inhibitors (n = 12, MG) and treated with corticosteroids (n = 15, MG-Cortico). (B) Real-time PCR analysis to assess the expression of miR-146a gene targets IRAK1, TRAF6, c-REL, and ICOS in the same normal and MG thymuses. In (A,B) boxplots, miR-146a and target expression levels were expressed as relative values (2−ΔCt × 100) normalized toward the endogenous small nuclear RNA (snRNA) U6 (miR-146a) or 18S (target genes); dark horizontal lines represent means, with the box representing the 25 and 75th percentiles and the whiskers the 5 and 95th percentiles. p values were assessed by the Kruskal–Wallis test followed by the Dunn's post hoc test, *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. (C) Negative correlation estimated by Spearman's correlation analysis between miR-146a levels and messenger RNA (mRNA) levels of IRAK1, c-REL, and ICOS in the thymus of 10 controls (•), 12 corticosteroid-naïve (°), and 15 corticosteroid-treated (▴) MG patients.