Extrauterine growth restriction on pulmonary vascular endothelial dysfunction in adult male rats: the role of epigenetic mechanisms

ABSTRACT: Early postnatal life is considered as a critical time window for determination of long-term metabolic states and organ functions. Extrauterine growth restriction (EUGR) causes the development of adult onset chronic diseases, including pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). However, the effects of nutritional disadvantages during early postnatal period on pulmonary vascular consequences in later life are not fully understood. Our study was designed to test whether epigentic dysregulation mediates the cellular memory of this early postnatal event. To test this hypothesis, we isolated pulmonary vascular endothelial cells (PVEC) by magnetic-activated cell sorting (MACS) from EUGR and control rats. A postnatal insult, nutritional restriction-induced EUGR caused development of an increased pulmonary artery pressure at 9-week of age in male rats. MeDIP-chip (Methyl-DNA immune precipitation chip), genome-scale mapping studies to search for differentially methylated loci between control and EUGR rats revealed significant difference in cytosine methylation between EUGR and control rats. We validated candidate dysregulated loci with quantitative assays of cytosine methylation and gene expressions. EUGR changes cytosine methylation at ~500 loci in male rats at 9 weeks of age, preceding the development of PAH and these represent candidate loci for mediating the pathogenesis of pulmonary vascular disease that occurs later in life. These results demonstrate that epigenetic dysregulation is a strong mechanism for propagating the cellular memory of early postnatal events, causing changes in expression of genes and long term susceptibility to PAH, and further providing a new insight into prevention and treatment of EUGR-related PAH. MeDIP together with microarray analysis demonstrated that significant differences in cytosine methylation between EUGR and control rats.

ORGANISM(S): Rattus norvegicus

PROVIDER: GSE48648 | GEO | 2013/07/10

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA210927

REPOSITORIES: GEO