Fig. 6

Functional analysis suggests the modulatory role of NDUFS2 in macrophage function and communication. a Split violin plot showing the expression distributions of NDUFS2 in pulmonary macrophages among control and COPD patients with or without smoking histories. b Bar plot showing GSVA scores of the top altered KEGG pathways in macrophages ^NDUFS2low (blue) and macrophages ^NDUFS2high (green). c GSEA analysis highlighting activated inflammatory response and suppressed phagocytosis as well as endocytosis in macrophages ^NDUFS2low as compared with macrophages ^NDUFS2high. Circle plots (d) showing the altered outgoing (left) and incoming (right) intercellular communications of macrophages ^NDUFS2low as compared with macrophages ^NDUFS2high (the thicker the line, the greater the change of interaction), which was overall quantified and visualized as a heatmap (e), coupled with the significant signaling pathways being ranked based on their differences of overall information flow within the outgoing (left) and incoming (right) communication networks between macrophages ^NDUFS2low and macrophages ^NDUFS2high (f). Circle plots (g) showing the altered outgoing (left) and incoming (right) intercellular communications of macrophages ^NDUFS2low from COPD patients as compared with macrophages ^NDUFS2high from control individuals, which was overall quantified and visualized as a heatmap (h), coupled with the significant signaling pathways being ranked based on their differences of overall information flow within the outgoing (left) and incoming (right) communication networks between macrophages ^NDUFS2low from COPD patients and macrophages ^NDUFS2high from control individuals (i)