Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals the Protection of Astragaloside IV against Diabetic Nephropathy by Modulating Inflammation

Figure 5

AS-IV treatment mitigates the expression of NLR signal events in the kidney of DN rats. GSEA analysis and quantification of interesting genes in the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway to compare DN with DN-As-IV rats. NC: normal group; DN: diabetic nephropathy model group; DN-AS-IV: AS-IV-treatment group. (a) The DEGs in the intersection of DEGs and NLR signaling-related genes among the DN, NC, and AS-IV groups of rats were hierarchically clustered and presented as heatmaps. There were 46 downregulated DEGs and 13 upregulated in the AS-IV group compared with the DN group. (b) The enriched genes in the NLR signaling pathway between the DN and AS-IV groups of rats were analyzed by GSEA method. There were 63 gene expression significantly enriched in the DN group, related to that in the AS-IV group. (c) Quantitative PCR analysis of the interesting genes. We found that AS-IV treatment mitigated the DN-modulated NOD2, JUN, PANX1, NOX2, TXNIP, CASPASE-1, IL-1β, and IL-18 and increased TRX1 mRNA transcription in DN rats. Results are presented as the of each group from three separate experiments, except for IL-1β as the median and range. versus the NC group. ^# versus the DN group.

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