Fig 1: Increased SEMA4A, 4B and PLXNB2 mRNA levels and amygdaloid association with PLXNB2 expression mediated by stress perception in FES patients. (A) Volcano plots represent pairwise comparisons for RNA-seq DEGs in peripheral blood of FES-hs (n=44) and FES-ls (n=37) patients versus HC (n=48) individuals. Genes with FDR<0.05 are colored (red: up-regulation; blue dots: down-regulation). SEMA4A and SEMA4B are highlighted. (B) Venn diagram illustrates overlapping and group-specific DEGs. Circles denote genes, overlapping regions between circles denote respective shared genes among the groups. The upper histogram chart represents numbers of pairwise DEGs and the lower histogram chart represents numbers of overlapping and nonoverlapping DEGs. (C) Blood mRNA levels of SEMA4A, SEMA4B and PLXNB2 in HCs, FES-ls and FES-hs patients, controlled by age, sex, and education. (D) Correlations of PLXNB2 with PSSsum (Spearman’s, n=44) and with amygdaloid size (Pearson’s, n=28) in FES-hs patients, controlled by age, sex, and education. (E) PSS mediated positive amygdaloid association with PLXNB2 in high-stress FES patients (Path AB), controlled by age, sex, and education. Path A represents a direct negative amygdaloid relationship with PSSsum. Path B represents a direct negative PSSsum with PLXNB2. Path C’ represents a direct amygdaloid relationship with PLXNB2 while path C represents a positive amygdaloid with PLXNB2 when PSSsum was considered, indicating a full mediation effect of PSSsum. *FDR<0.05, **FDR<0.01 (ANCOVA). See also Tables S1.2, S1.3 and Figure S1 .