Figure 1. Butyrate selectively downregulates gene expression associated with leukocyte/mast cell activation. Gene expression profiles of primary human mast cells after 24 h of 5mM butyrate treatment was measured using RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq; two biological replicates from independent donors). (A) Scatter plot of downregulated (indicated in red), upregulated (indicated in green) and unchanged genes (indicated in grey) in response to 24 h butyrate treatment. (B) Proportions (top) and absolute numbers (bottom) of downregulated (red), upregulated (green) and unchanged genes (gray). (C) Heatmap showing scaled expression levels of down- and upregulated genes, selected example genes (with the highest fold change) are presented next to the heatmap. (D) Pathway enrichment analysis of downregulated (top) and upregulated (below) genes. (E) Expression changes in response to butyrate of canonical mast cell genes (red), downregulated genes (orange), unchanged genes (yellow), upregulated genes (blue). (F) Expression changes in response to butyrate of the top 50 highest expressed genes (green) and canonical mast cell genes (red). MC, mast cell; RPKM, reads per kilobase per million