Fig. 4
From: Hepatic stellate cell activation markers are regulated by the vagus nerve in systemic inflammation
HSC activation-markers in inflammation controlled by the vagus nerve. (A-B) Wild-type C57BL/6J mice were subjected to either left cervical unilateral vagotomy (VX) (n = 4) or sham surgery (n = 4). After 7 days, mice were injected with zymosan (0.1 mg/mouse) and euthanized after 12 h. Liver biopsies were collected and analyzed by RNA sequencing. (A) Volcano plot of differentially regulated genes between VX and sham mice. Red color indicates significant fold change (FC) outside limits shown by dashed lines (FC ≥ 1, FDR-adjusted p < 0.05) (B) Levels of select inflammation- and hepatic stellate cell (HSC)-associated transcripts were plotted. (C) Wild-type C57BL/6J mice were subjected to either left cervical unilateral vagus nerve stimulation (VNS, grey bars) or sham surgery (SHAM, white bars) followed by intraperitoneal injection of zymosan (0.1 mg/mouse) 1 h thereafter. Liver and blood samples were collected 12 h after zymosan injection and analyzed by qPCR (n = 5 per group). Bars show mean ± SEM, dots represent individual mice. PNPLA3 mRNA level were normalized to Ppia and expressed relative to SHAM (100%). * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01 (two-sided Student´s t-test)