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Single nuclei transcriptomics reveals altered endothelial cell function, permeability, and cognition in diabetic mice.

ABSTRACT: Diabetes (DM) increases cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease risk. However, the mechanism of DM-associated microvascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation remain unknown. We present a global assessment of endothelial cell-specific gene expression and integrated transcriptomics directly addressing hippocampal endothelium in diabetic mice, with the goal of determining the effect of DM in endothelial cell function and potential implications to vascular dementia. We observe for the first-time differential gene expression with strong signatures of cell signaling, activation of pathways for endothelial dysfunction, and neurodegeneration. Moreover, we identified that the integrated transcriptomic changes associate with blood brain barrier disruption by magnetic resonance imaging, and behavioral alterations, and correlate with the clinical gene profile of dementia patients, revealing opportunities for treatments with specificity for molecular pathology.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE241142 | GEO | 2024/01/22

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Diabetes mellitus [DM], with its burden of premature morbidity and mortality, represents one of the major threats to human health in the 21st century (Zimmet 2001). Accelerated atherosclerosis affecting arteries that supply the heart, brain and lower extremities is responsible for an increased risk of acute ischemic events. DM is also associated with microvascular disease, which is a leading cause of blindness, renal failure and debilitating neuropathies. Endothelial dysfunction, increased vascular permeability and microvascular cell loss by apoptosis are all hallmarks of diabetic microangiopathy. Diabetic patients not only incur cardiovascular complications more frequently, but also experience worse outcomes due to attenuation of vascular repair mechanisms. This impairment includes quantitative and qualitative abnormalities of bone marrow [BM]-derived progenitor cells (Emanueli 2002&2004; Loomans 2004; Krankel 2005; Fadini 2006). The mechanisms underlying BM dysfunction remain however enigmatic, especially when considering the privileged location that protects stem cells [SC] and progenitor cells [PC] of the marrow from external insults (Kopp 2008 and Kiel 2008). BM endothelial cells [EC] are instead an obvious target of DM, because they are directly exposed to blood glucose and incapable to regulate glucose influx. Strangely enough, little is known about the impact of diabetes on BM microvasculature. We hypothesize that damage induced by DM might start at the microvascular level, in a similar fashion to microangiopathy, which occurs in kidney, retina, heart and brain. We also propose that enduring microvascular cell loss might result in marrow hypo-perfusion and destabilization of SC homeostasis. In order to test this hypothesis, we studied streptozotocin-induced (STZ) type-1 DM and age-matched non-DM mice (n=6 to 10 per group in each experiment). Histological examination of femurs, collected from STZ-mice at 28-30 weeks from induction of DM or controls, showed remarkable differences in bone density and marrow composition. Bone marrow cells from healthy and diabetic animals were next selected for endothelial progenitors and cultured for 10 days under endothelial cell growth conditions. Next RNA was isolated and analysed by Illumina Sentrix Beadarrays.

Project description:Cerebrovascular dysfunction is a hallmark feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD). One of the greatest risk factor for AD is the apolipoprotein E4 (E4) allele. APOE4 genotype has been shown to negatively impact on perivascular amyloid clearance, however, its direct influence along with the other APOE variants (APOE2 and APOE3) on the molecular integrity of the cerebrovasculature has not been largely explored. To address this, we employed a 10-plex tandem isobaric mass tag approach in combination with an ultra-high pressure liquid chromatography MS/MS (Q-Exactive) method, to interrogate unbiased proteomic changes in cerebrovessels from AD and healthy control brains on different APOE genotype backgrounds. We first interrogated changes between healthy control homozygote E2/E2, E3/E3 and E4/E4 cases to identify underlying genotype specific effects on cerebrovessels. EIF2 signaling, regulation of eIF4 and 70S6K signaling and mTOR signaling were the top significantly altered pathways in E4/E4 compared to E3/E3 cases. EIF2, nitric oxide and sirtuin signaling pathways were the top significantly altered pathways in E4/E4 compared to E2/E2 cases. We used a Two-way ANOVA analysis to identify AD-dependent changes and their interactions with APOE genotype. The highest number of significantly regulated proteins from this interaction was observed in E3/E4 (192) and E4/E4 (189) cases. As above, EIF2, mTOR signaling and eIF4 and 70S6K signaling were the top three significantly altered pathways in E4 allele carriers (i.e. E3/E4 and E4/E4 genotypes). Of all the cerebrovascular cell specific markers identified in our proteomic analyses, endothelial cell, astrocyte, and smooth muscle cell specific protein markers were significantly altered in E4/E4 cases, while endothelial cells and astrocyte specific protein markers were altered in E3/E4 cases. These proteomic changes provide novel insights to explain the longstanding link between APOE4 and cerebrovascular dysfunction. The early and converging APOE4 dependent changes we identified could provide novel targets in the cerebrovasculature for developing disease modifying strategies to mitigate the effects of APOE4 genotype on increasing the risk for, and the path towards AD pathogenesis.

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Single nuclei transcriptomics reveals altered endothelial cell function, permeability, and cognition in diabetic mice.

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