Project description:Hypoxia can induce vasoconstriction followed by vascular remodeling including hypertrophy and hyperplasia of pulmonary vascular smooth muscle and proliferation of endothelial cells. The goal of this project is to elucidate the genes involved in vascular remodeling following pulmonary hypertension. Total RNA was isolated from lungs of normoxic and hypoxic treated animals. Keywords: other
Project description:We introduce a novel in vitro platform that could simulate key native pulmonary vascular phenotypes and functions, and shows the potential of using the bioengineered whole organ as a platform for disease modeling. Since it is becoming clear that vascular endothelium and the coagulation cascade are adversely affected in some COVID19 patients, such an engineered organ system may play an important role in dissecting disease mechanisms and treatments.
Project description:Pulmonary hypertension (PH), a common complication in dogs affected by degenerative mitral valve disease (DMVD), is a progressive disorder characterized by increased pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) and pulmonary vascular remodeling. Early diagnosis of PH is crucial for effective management and improved clinical outcomes. This study aimed to identify potential serum biomarkers for diagnosing PH in dogs affected with DMVD using a phosphoproteomic approach.
Project description:IL-4-mediated pro-inflammatory vascular responses have been implicated in the pathogenesis of chronic cardiopulmonary diseases. Our results show that hypoxia-induced collagen synthesis and early recruitment of inflammatory cells are significantly less in the lungs of IL-4 knockout (KO) mice than in those of wild-type mice. In addition, we found that IL-4 significantly increased pro-inflammatory genes in primary pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells. This study was designed to identify the gene expression profile of IL-4-dependent pulmonary vascular inflammation induced by hypoxia.
Project description:Pulmonary hypertension worsens outcome in left heart disease. Stiffening of the pulmonary artery may drive this pathology by increasing right ventricular dysfunction and lung vascular remodeling. We showed that pulmonary arteries from patients with left heart disease are characterized by increased stiffness that correlates with impaired pulmonary hemodynamics. Pulmonary arteries in left heart disease patients with pulmonary hypertension were characterized by degradation of elastic fibers paralleled by an accumulation of fibrillar collagens. We utilized RNA sequencing to identify differentially expressed genes regulating extracellular matrix remodeling in pulmonary arteries of left heart disease patients with or without pulmonary hypertension, in comparison to healthy-heart donor controls. As such we identified that transcriptional deregulation of extracellular matrix constituents and their regulators precedes clinical pulmonary hypertension, and therefore might be a pathomechanism that drives pulmonary arterial remodeling and stiffening in left heart disease.
Project description:	Pulmonary hypertension (PH), a common complication in dogs affected by degenerative mitral valve disease (DMVD), is a progressive disorder characterized by increased pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) and pulmonary vascular remodeling. Early diagnosis of PH is crucial for effective management and improved clinical outcomes. This study aimed to identify potential serum biomarkers for diagnosing PH in dogs affected with DMVD using a phosphoproteomic approach.
Project description: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. Comparison of EUGR(n=3) vs Control (n=3) male rats' pulmonary vascular endothelial cells in 9-week age old rats
Project description:Disordered angiogenesis is implicated in the pulmonary vascular remodeling secondary to congenital heart disease (CHD). However, the underlying genes are not well delineated. We have previously shown that an ovine model of CHD with increased pulmonary blood flow (PBF, Shunt) has an M-bM-^@M-^\angiogenesis burstM-bM-^@M-^] between 1-4 weeks of age. Thus, we hypothesized that the increased pulmonary blood flow elicited a pro-angiogenic gene expression profile prior to the onset of vessel growth. To test this we utilized microarray analysis to identify genes that could be responsible for the angiogenic response. Total RNA was isolated from the lungs of Shunt and Control lambs at 3 days of age and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChips for microarray analyses (n=8 for each group). A total of 89 angiogenesis-related genes were found to be up-regulated and 26 angiogenesis-related genes down-regulated in Shunt lungs compared to control (cutting at 1.2 fold difference, P<0.05). We then confirmed the up-regulation of pro-angiogenic genes: FGF2, Angiopoietin2 (Angpt2), and Birc5 at both mRNA and protein levels and the up-regulation of ccl2 at mRNA level in the 3-day shunt lungs. Further, we found that pulmonary arterial endothelial cells (PAEC) isolated from juvenile lambs exhibited increased expression of FGF2, Angpt2, Birc5, and ccl2 as well as enhanced angiogenesis when exposed to elevated shear stress (35 dyn/cm2) compared to cells exposed to more physiological level shear stress (20 dyn/cm2). Finally, we demonstrated that blocking FGF2, Angpt2, or Birc 5 signaling, using neutralizing antibodies, significantly decreased the angiogenic response induced by shear stress. In conclusion, we have identified a pro-angiogenic gene expression profile in a lamb model of CHD with increased PBF that precedes the onset of pulmonary vascular remodeling. Further, our data indicate that FGF2, Angiopoietin2, Birc5, and ccl2 may play important roles in the angiogenic response. Total RNA was isolated from the lungs of Shunt and Control lambs at 3 days of age and hybridized to Affymetrix GeneChips for microarray analyses. Eight chips were employed for both control and shunt groups.