Fig. 3

RNAseq analysis of gene expression profiles of TSPCs treated with or without U0126. A Heatmap depicting expression levels of genes between U0126-treated or control TSPCs. In total, 716 genes were differentially expressed between these two groups of TSPCs. B Volcano map of the differentially expressed genes in U0126-treated or control TSPCs. C The TOP 30 enriched KEGG pathways in U0126-treated TSPCs. D RNAseq analysis showed GDF6 was significantly increased in U0126-treated TSPCs, as compared with control TSPCs. E The relative expression level of GDF6 was evaluated by qRT-PCR in U0126-treated TSPCs. GAPDH was used as an internal control. The data was expressed as mean ± SD (n = 3), *p < 0.05. F Immunocytochemical staining of GDF6 in TSPCs treated with different concentrations of U0126. And the relative intensity was quantified with Image J software. The data was expressed as mean ± SD (n = 3), *p < 0.05. Scale bar = 100 μm