Project description:Aorta was isolated from ANF-Cre positive/BMP10 loxP/loxP/BMP9-/- (BMP9/10 dKO) mice. ANF-Cre negative BMP10 loxP/loxP mice were used as controls. Transcritional profiling was performed to understand the impact of BMP9/10 expression on aorta function.
Project description:Aorta was isolated from ANF-Cre positive / BMP10 loxP/loxP / BMP9-/- (BMP9/10 dKO) mice. ANF-Cre negative BMP10 loxP/loxP mice were used as controls. Transcriptional profiling was performed to understand the importance of BMP9/10 expression on aorta function.
Project description:This study was designed to compare the global gene expression change induced by the circulating, prodomain bound forms of BMP9 and BMP10 (pro-BMP9 and pro-BMP10) in human pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAECs). This is different from many previous studies which used the growth factor domain of BMP9 and/or BMP10.
Project description:The liver is a largest solid organ in the body and is majorly composed of HCs, ECs, KCs, and HSCs, which spatially interact and cooperate each other to maintain liver homeostasis. However, the complexity and molecular mechanisms underlying the crosstalk between these different cell types remain to be revealed. Here, we generated mice with conditional deletion of Bmp9/10 in different liver cell types and demonstrated that HSCs was the major source of BMP9 and BMP10 in the liver. Using transgenic ALK1 (receptor for BMP9/10) reporter mice, we found that ALK1 is expressed on KCs and ECs other than HCs and HSCs. KCs from Bmp9/10HSC-KO (conditional deletion of Bmp9/10 from HSCs) mice lost their signature genes expression, such as ID1/3, CLEC4F, VSIG4 and CLEC2, and were replaced by monocyte-derived macrophages. ECs from Bmp9/10HSC-KO mice also lost their identity and were transdifferentiated to continuous ECs, ultimately leading to collagen IV deposition and liver fibrosis. Hepatic ECs expressed several angiocrine factors, such as BMP2, BMP6, Wnt2 and Rspo3, to regulate liver iron metabolism and metabolic zonation. We found that these angiocrine factors were significantly decreased in ECs from Bmp9/10HSC-KO mice, which further resulted in liver iron overload and disruption of HCs zonation. In addition, focal fatty liver spontaneously occurred in Bmp9/10HSC-KO mice at the age of 28W. In summary, we demonstrated that HSCs play a central role in mediating liver cell-cell crosstalk via production of BMP9/10 to maintain liver health.
Project description:BMP9 and BMP10 are two key regulators of vascular homeostasis. These two ligands bind with high affinity to the endothelial type I receptor ALK1 together with a type 2 receptor. Mutations in this signaling pathway have been identified in two rare cardiovascular diseases, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and pulmonary arterial hypertension. So far, only the canonical SMAD signaling pathway has been extensively studied in response to BMPs. The aim of this work was to address early phosphoproteomic changes in endothelial cells in response to short-term stimulation (30 mins) with BMP9 and BMP10 in order to identify new phosphorylated targets and signaling pathways.
Project description:We generated C57BL/6 mice lacking Bmp10 and/or Bmp9 utilizing the Cre-loxP system. Briefly, Bmp9 constitutive deletion resulted from the replacement of exon 2 by a neomycin resistance cassette. Because Bmp10 deletion leads to early embryonic lethality, we used the tamoxifen-inducible Cre system to generate Bmp10-cKO mice (Rosa26-CreERT2;Bmp10lox/lox) by crossing Rosa26-CreERT2 mice with Bmp10lox/lox mice that possess loxP sites flanking exon 2. To generate double-KO (DKO) mice, we crossed these Rosa26-CreERT2;Bmp10lox/lox mice with Bmp9-KO mice. At the age of 8 weeks, mice were treated with tamoxifen (Sigma) by intraperitoneal injection once a day for 5 days at a dosage of 50 mg/kg. At the age of 5 months, Wild Type and DKO mouse lung tissue was flash frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80°C. RNA extraction, RNA sample quality assessment, RNA library preparation, sequencing and raw data analysis were conducted at GENEWIZ, Inc. (South Plainfield, NJ, USA). Total RNA was extracted from frozen tissue using the Qiagen RNeasy Plus Mini kit. RNA samples were quantified using Qubit 2.0 Fluorometer (Life Technologies, Carlsbad, CA, USA) and RNA integrity was checked with Agilent TapeStation (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA). rRNA depletion was performed using Ribozero rRNA Removal Kit (Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA). RNA sequencing library preparation used NEBNext Ultra RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina by following the manufacturer’s recommendations (NEB, Ipswich, MA, USA). Briefly, enriched RNAs were fragmented for 15 minutes at 94 °C. First strand and second strand cDNA were subsequently synthesized. cDNA fragments were end repaired and adenylated at 3’ends, and universal adapter was ligated to cDNA fragments, followed by index addition and library enrichment with limited cycle PCR. Sequencing libraries were validated using the Agilent Tapestation 4200 (Agilent Technologies, Palo Alto, CA, USA), and quantified by using Qubit 2.0 Fluorometer (Invitrogen, Carlsbad, CA) as well as by quantitative PCR (Applied Biosystems, Carlsbad, CA, USA). The sequencing libraries were clustered on one lane of a flowcell. After clustering, the flowcell was loaded on the Illumina HiSeq 4000 instrument (or equivalent) according to manufacturer’s instructions. The samples were sequenced using a 2x150 Paired End (PE) configuration. Image analysis and base calling were conducted by the HiSeq Control Software (HCS). Raw sequence data (.bcl files) generated from Illumina HiSeq was converted into fastq files and de-multiplexed using Illumina's bcl2fastq 2.17 software. One mis-match was allowed for index sequence identification. After investigating the quality of the raw data, sequence reads were trimmed to remove possible adapter sequences and nucleotides with poor quality using Trimmomatic v.0.36. The trimmed reads were mapped to the the Mus musculus GRCm38 reference genome available on ENSEMBL using the STAR aligner v.2.5.2b. Gene counts were calculated from uniquely mapped reads using feature Counts from the Subread package v.1.5.2. Only unique reads that fell within exon regions were counted. The gene hit counts table was then used for downstream differential expression analysis. A differential gene expression analysis between WT and DKO groups of samples was performed using the R-package DESeq2 (Wald test).