Sylamer enrichment analysis in B cells. (A) The Sylamer enrichment analysis of the miR-146a–binding sites, including AGTTCTC (blue) and GTTCTCA (red) in the 3′-UTRs of differentially expressed genes in B cells. The x-axis represents the list of 16 564 identified genes sorted from the most downregulated to the most upregulated ones in the miR-146a–overexpressing B cells. Each 7-mer motif was calculated for its significant enrichment across the 3′-UTRs of genes in the list. These 2 motifs corresponding to the miR-146a seed region are significantly enriched in the downregulated genes. (B) The B cells from WT and miR-146a TG mice were labeled with eFluor670 (an alternative cell proliferation dye of CFSE) and then stimulated with LPS (0.1 μg/mL) in vitro. After 72 hours, cultured cells were collected and analyzed by the CFSE dilution and FACS assays. (C) Non-GC B cells or (D) CD4+ T cells sorted from WT or TG mice and adoptively transferred into SCID mice. After 7 days of adoptive transfer, homeostasis proliferation of non-GC B or CD4+ T cells was detected using the EdU-incorporation assay. (E) Non-GC B cells were sorted from WT or TG mice; naive T cells were sorted from WT mice. T cells were mixed with each type of B cell, and the mixture was adoptively transferred into SCID mice. Seven days post initial transfer, rates of homeostasis proliferation were determined by the Edu-labeling experiments ex vivo. Transferred B cells (Figure 6E, left, including both WT and TG origins) and transferred WT CD4+/CD8+ T cells were examined under the impact of WT B or TG B cells (Figure 6E, middle and right).