Fig. 6

Human NK cells showed transcriptome changes that include the expression of cell activity– regulated genes and upregulation of DUSP4 expression caused by the ADSC secretome. Human primary NK cells isolated from PBMCs of a healthy donor were cultured for 48 h with 150 μg/ml of the ADSC secretome or without in the presence of 10 ng/ml of rhIL-2 (n = 6). A A total of 352 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were indicated into 99 down-regulated genes (blue) and 253 up-regulated genes (yellow) in secretome-treatment group compared to IL-2 alone control group based on fold change and P value (P < 0.05, and |fc|≥ 2). B 352 DEGs indicated in A were grouped by the similarity of expression level and visualized in the heat map of the one-way Hierarchical Clustering using Z-score for normalized value (log₂ based), ranging from low expression (blue) to high expression (yellow). C Volcano plot of gene expression of human primary NK cells using mRNA-seq (n = 6), indicating selected genes (red) associated with regulation of cell activity. Down-regulated (blue) and up-regulated (mustard) differentially expressed genes in secretome-treatment group were indicated. D mRNA levels of up-regulated differentially expressed genes that are phosphatase or ubiquitin ligase among the genes displayed in C. E Immunoblot analysis of protein levels of DUSP4 (left) and DTX1 (right) in NK cells from human blood. Full-length blots were presented in Additional file 5: Figure S7. RNA-seq data satisfying the conditions of adjusted P < 0.05, and |fc|≥ 2 were shown. Error bars represent mean ± SEM of four healthy donors. Statistical tests were determined by Student’s paired two-tailed t-test; not significant (ns), **P < 0.01