MicroRNA-126-3p as a predictive biomarker for patients with primary biliary cholangitis refractory to ursodeoxycholic acid

Figure 1 Significant differences in microRNA expression and functional enrichment of primary biliary cholangitis with different ursodeoxycholic acid efficacy. A: Scheme of overall study design; B: The number of differentially expressed microRNAs (miRNAs) before ursodeoxycholic acid treatment in the sensitive group and the resistance group. Up-regulated miRNAs are colored in red and down-regulated miRNAs are colored in blue; C: Volcano plot shows miRNAs that differ significantly between the two groups, based on fold change (drug sensitive pre-treatment vs drug resistance pre-treatment; drug sensitive post-treatment vs drug resistance pre-treatment) and P-value. In particular, blue (fold change < -1.25; P < 0.05) or red dots (fold change > 1.25; P < 0.05) indicate the presence of significantly downregulated or upregulated miRNAs, respectively. Gray dots were non-significantly different miRNAs; D: Clustering heatmap of pre-treatment differential miRNAs expression between resistant and sensitive groups. Red indicates upregulation and blue indicates downregulation. The columns and rows represent experimental SP samples and miRNAs, respectively; E: Clustering heatmap of differential miRNAs expression before and after treatment in the sensitive group; F: Gene Ontology enrichment analysis of differential miRNA target genes before ursodeoxycholic acid treatment in sensitive and resistance groups; G: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis of the differential miRNAs target genes. UDCA: Ursodeoxycholic acid; PBC: Primary biliary cholangitis; miRNA-seq: MicroRNA sequencing; RT-qRCR: Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction; DRpre: Drug resistance pre-treatment; DSpre: Drug sensitive pre-treatment; DSpost: Drug sensitive post-treatment.