Melatonin Prevents Osteoarthritis-Induced Cartilage Degradation via Targeting MicroRNA-140

Figure 5

Identification of miRNAs that are differentially expressed in melatonin-treated human articular chondrocytes. (a) Differentially expressed miRNAs in chondrocytes in response to melatonin were illustrated as a heat map. The color bars on the left of the heat map indicate gene expression level; red denotes high expression and blue denotes low expression, relative to the median. (b) Real-time PCR validation of miR-140 expression in IL-1β-treated and melatonin-treated chondrocytes. Values are the of four independent experiments () in PCR. (c) Pathway enrichment analysis for targets of miRNAs. The size of the dots (gene count) represents the number of genes (predicted targets of differentially expressed miRNAs) involved in a given biological process. The color of the dots represents value. The terms are sorted alphabetically. Statistically significant differences are indicated by ## where vs. the CTRL group and where between the indicated groups.

(a)

(b)

(c)