Fig. 5. Spurious transcripts activate the endosomal TLR7 signaling pathway in SMCs.
a, KEGG pathway analysis of RNA-seq data from SMCs of control and Tet3smKO:T lungs (n = 2 independent animals). P value was calculated using the two-sided, Fisher’s exact test. b, The heatmap represents normalized counts transformed by the z score of differentially expressed genes involved in TLR signaling, chemokine signaling and selected macrophage related genes (n = 2; log2(fold change) >0.585, Wald-test with Benjamini–Hochberg correction: P ≤ 0.05). c, In situ PLA to visualize the interaction between TLR7 and MYD88 in airway SMCs. Nuclei were counterstained with DAPI. Quantification of PLA signals is shown in the right panel (n = 3 independent animals; two-tailed, unpaired t-test: ****P < 0.0001). Scale bar, 50 μm. d, RT-qPCR analysis of HeLa cells transfected with total RNAs from control SMCs, Tet3smKO:T SMCs and after mock transfection with or without TLR7 inhibitor (E6446) treatment (n = 3 independent experiments; one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test: **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; ****P < 0.0001). The experimental strategy for mRNA transfection is depicted in the upper panel. Data in c and d are presented as mean values ± s.e.m.