Fig. 4

Volcano plot of gene expression levels and heatmap of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). a The volcano plot was generated from gene-level differential expression results based on DESeq2, showing the distribution of down- and up-regulated genes in LPN as compared with in OPN. DESeq2 showed 65 down-regulated and 62 up-regulated DEGs in LPN. In blue are the significantly (Padj < 0.05) down-regulated genes with a log2 fold change (LFC) < −1 (left of the vertical line). In red are the significantly (Padj < 0.05) up-regulated genes with an LFC > 1 (right of the vertical line). The larger the absolute value of LFC, the larger the area of the point. b Clustering heatmap of 127 DEGs. The heatmap shows down-regulated and up-regulated genes between LPN (LPN1, LPN2 and LPN3) and OPN (OPN1, OPN2 and OPN3) samples (LFC < −1 or > 1, Padj < 0.05). Color intensity represents expression level of DEGs, the deeper the red, the higher the gene expression level in samples, whereas the deeper the blue, the lower the expression in samples