Fig. 4
RNA-Seq profile of the DJ-1 knockout rat brain demonstrates altered AKT signaling. a Effect of DJ-1 depletion as illustrated by volcano plot of 15,537 mRNA transcripts quantified using RNA-Seq in mRNA isolated from 6-month-old male rat brains (n = 8 WT, n = 6 DJ-1 knockout). Over 2000 genes are differentially expressed in the DJ-1 knockout rat brains (BH adjusted p < 0.05). Genes are colored by the log10 of the base mean expression. b-c Top 10 Wikipathways (b) and KEGG pathways (c) from the significant enrichment of differentially expressed mRNAs in the DJ-1 knockout:WT RNA-Seq comparison. The number of genes expected to be in the list by random chance is indicated in grey and the entire bar indicates the observed numbers. d AKT-regulated downstream transcription factors that activate target genes, leading to significant overrepresentation of differentially expressed mRNAs present in DJ-1 knockout compared to WT rat brains. Expected and observed number of genes are indicated as in (b) and (c). e Western blot showing the levels of total AKT, pAKT S473, DJ-1, and β-actin in whole-brain homogenates from 6-month-old male rats (n = 7 WT, n = 7 DJ-1 knockout). The ratio of pAKT S473 to total AKT was normalized and graphed as in Fig. 1d. *, p < 0.05