miR-926-3p influences myocardial injury in septic mice through regulation of mTOR signaling pathway by targeting TSC1

Figure 1. Bioinformatics analysis. (A) Volcano plot of visually grouped DEGs in GSE79962. (B) Cluster heatmap of DEGs in GSE79962. (C) Volcano plot of visually grouped DEGs in GSE12624. (D) Cluster heatmap of DEGs in GSE12624. (E) Volcano plot of visually grouped DEGs in GSE101639. (F) Cluster heatmap of DEGs in GSE101639. (G and H) Diagrams of up-regulated and down-regulated GO pathways of DEGs. (I) KEGG pathway of DEGs. (J and K) GSEA showed that regulation of autophagy, mTOR signaling pathway and other pathways were significantly related to the enrichment of DEGs. (L) Venn diagrams of candidate target genes and GSE101639 DEGs.

Figure 2. The changes of cardiac function in mice were detected by ultrasound. (A) Echocardiogram of the mouse heart. (B) Changes of echocardiographic parameters in mice. *p < 0.05.

Figure 3. Pathological changes of myocardial tissues in mice. (A) Pathological results of central muscle tissue in mice in the control group; (B) Pathological results of mouse central muscle tissue in the sepsis group.

Figure 4. Observation of myocardial autophagy in mice via electron microscopy and detection of GFP-LC3 puncta formation via fluorescence microscopy. (A) Control group and the sepsis group used electron microscopy to observe the autophagy result plot; (B) Fluorescence plot of GFP-LC3 spots in each group and expression of relative fluorescence intensity. **p < 0.01; ns p > 0.05.

Figure 5. Expressions of autophagy/mTOR pathway-related proteins in mouse myocardium. (A) Relative expression of autophagy/mTOR pathway-related proteins in mouse myocardium; (B) Strip plot of autophagy/mTOR pathway-related proteins in mouse myocardium. **p < 0.01; ns p > 0.05.

Figure 6. In vitro experiments demonstrated that low expression of miR-926-3p could enhance autophagy by regulating the mTOR signaling pathway. (A) Strip plot for detection of mTOR pathway-related proteins in in vitro experiments. (B) In vitro experiments to detect the relative protein expression of proteins associated with the mTOR pathway. **p < 0.01; ns p > 0.05.

Figure 7. Autophagy blockade of miR-926-3p KD on cardiomyocytes detected by Western blotting. (A) Expression levels of autophagy-related protein LC3II in cardiomyocytes at different times. (B) Relative protein expression of LC3II. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.