Fig. 5
Validation of expression levels of 6 hub genes in MTB-infected DCs. Based on (A) GSE163351, there is a statistically significant difference between MTB-infected and NI DCs in six hub gene expression levels. The statistically significant results of expression levels from healthy populations (B) and TB populations (C) validated by RT-qPCR were displayed in a boxplot. IFN-α/β (D-E) and IFN-γ (F) secretion quantified by ELISA were presented in boxplots. Paired t-test was used to compare the means of the control and the treated groups (*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001, ****: p < 0.0001, ns.: no significance). (MTB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis; NI, non-infected; DCs, dendritic cells; TB, tuberculosis; RT-qPCR, reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction; Mo-DCs, Monocyte-derived dendritic cells; IFN, interferon; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay)