Figure 1.

Deep sequencing showed the expression of tRFs and tiRNAs in the rat carotid artery

(A) The schema shows the position of injury to the rat common carotid artery (CCA). (B) Neointima (indicated by a dotted line) appeared in the injured artery 14 days after surgery. The ratio of the intima/media area markedly increased in the injured artery (n = 5). (C) The expression of tRFs and tiRNA in the CCA was detected by deep sequencing. The Venn plot showed the tRF and tiRNA numbers, which were expressed in both of the injured and control CCAs and also indicated the number of specific expression tRFs and tiRNAs. (D) Scatterplot and volcano plot of tRFs and tiRNAs between the healthy and the injured CCAs. tRFs and tiRNAs above the top line (red dots, upregulation) or below the bottom line (blue dots, downregulation) indicate a more than 2.0-fold change between two compared groups. Brown dots show the tRFs and tiRNAs without differential expression. (E) Heatmap of gene expression obtained from the control and the injured CCAs; it includes the 500 tRFs and tiRNAs that have the most significant coefficient of variation (CV) based on tag counts per million of total aligned tRNA reads (TPM). Blue represented an expression level below the mean. Red represented an expression level above the mean (n = 3). Data are expressed as means ± SEM. ∗∗p < 0.01.