Figure 7.

Loss of miR-21 in PTEN-deficient hepatocytes prevents macrophages and increases T-cell recruitment in pre-tumoral hepatic tissues. (A) Heatmap representation of relative mRNA expression of inflammatory markers involved in immune cell recruitment, adhesion, activation, and differentiation; of macrophages, T cells, B cells and NK cells; and of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in pre-tumoral hepatic tissues of 7-month-old mice (CTRL, n = 9; LPTENKO, n = 8; LPTENmiR21KO, n = 12). Data were submitted to log10-transformation of the fold-change (FC) to CTRL and is represented as means. (B) Representative immunohistochemical staining of CD3, CD4, and CD8 in liver sections (left) and quantification of positive cells (number of positive cells per mm², right) in CTRL (n = 9), LPTENKO (n = 8), and LPTENmiR21KO (n = 7–8) mice. Data is represented as mean ± SD. Data that failed normality tests was submitted to log10-transformation prior to statistical analysis. An outliers test was performed using the ROUT method (Q = 1%). Unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction was used for comparison between two groups. One-way ANOVA with Holm–Sidak’s correction was used for comparison between more than two groups. * p-value < 0.05, ** p-value < 0.01, *** p-value < 0.001.