Fig. 3

Microarray analysis of differentially expressed genes in MSCs during endothelial differentiation. In EC-MSC coculture system, there MSC samples for each group were collected at days 0 and 7, respectively, and sent to microarray analysis of differentially expressed genes. The inclusion criteria for differentially expressed genes were the absolute fold change of RNA levels > 1.5 and P value < 0.05. The analysis yielded 2482 (999 upregulated and 1483 downregulated) genes in MSC-H cells and 1325 (671 upregulated and 654 downregulated) genes in MSC-C cells. These genes were enriched in GO terms (a) and KEGG pathways analysis (b). The enriched terms that were present in both MSC-C and MSC-H groups were marked by asterisks. The MSC-H cells yielded a cluster of the most enriched terms with high similarity to MSC-C cells. Approximately one-half of the most enriched GO terms and pathways were consistent between them. Nevertheless, multiple pathways were noteworthy of being exclusively enriched in MSC-H cells, including MAPK and p53 signaling. c The number of differentially expressed genes (significance genes) enriched in the shared GO terms was counted and compared between groups. MSC-H cells yielded 1.7-fold (ranged from 1.5 to 1.9-fold) greater number of significance genes than MSC-C cells on average. d The number of differentially expressed genes (significance genes) enriched in the shared signaling pathways was counted and compared between groups. Similarly, MSC-H cells had an average 1.4-fold (ranged from 1.3 to 1.8-fold) increase of significance gene counts than the MSC-H cells