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Multiple oxygen tension environments reveal diverse patterns of transcriptional regulation in primary astrocytes

ABSTRACT: The central nervous system normally functions at O2 levels which would be regarded as hypoxic by most other tissues. However, most in vitro studies of neurons and astrocytes are conducted under hyperoxic conditions without consideration of O2-dependent cellular adaptation. We analyzed the reactivity of astrocytes to 1, 4 and 9% O2 tensions compared to the cell culture standard of 20% O2, to investigate their ability to sense and translate this O2 information to transcriptional activity. Variance of ambient O2 tension for rat astrocytes resulted in profound changes in ribosomal activity, cytoskeletal and energy-regulatory mechanisms and cytokine-related signaling. Clustering of transcriptional regulation patterns revealed four distinct response pattern groups that directionally pivoted around the 4% O2 tension, or demonstrated coherent ascending/decreasing gene expression patterns in response to diverse oxygen tensions. Immune response and cell cycle/cancer-related signaling pathway transcriptomic subsets were significantly activated with increasing hypoxia, whilst hemostatic and cardiovascular signaling mechanisms were attenuated with increasing hypoxia. Our data indicate that variant O2 tensions induce specific and physiologically-focused transcript regulation patterns that may underpin important physiological mechanisms that connect higher neurological activity to astrocytic function and ambient oxygen environments. These strongly defined patterns demonstrate a strong bias for physiological transcript programs to pivot around the 4% O2 tension, while uni-modal programs that do not, appear more related to pathological actions. The functional interaction of these transcriptional ‘programs’ may serve to regulate the dynamic vascular responsivity of the central nervous system during periods of stress or heightened activity.

ORGANISM(S): Rattus norvegicus

PROVIDER: GSE29296 | GEO | 2012/09/20

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA138621

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The central nervous system normally functions at O2 levels which would be regarded as hypoxic by most other tissues. However, most in vitro studies of neurons and astrocytes are conducted under hyperoxic conditions without consideration of O2-dependent cellular adaptation. We analyzed the reactivity of astrocytes to 1, 4 and 9% O2 tensions compared to the cell culture standard of 20% O2, to investigate their ability to sense and translate this O2 information to transcriptional activity. Variance of ambient O2 tension for rat astrocytes resulted in profound changes in ribosomal activity, cytoskeletal and energy-regulatory mechanisms and cytokine-related signaling. Clustering of transcriptional regulation patterns revealed four distinct response pattern groups that directionally pivoted around the 4% O2 tension, or demonstrated coherent ascending/decreasing gene expression patterns in response to diverse oxygen tensions. Immune response and cell cycle/cancer-related signaling pathway transcriptomic subsets were significantly activated with increasing hypoxia, whilst hemostatic and cardiovascular signaling mechanisms were attenuated with increasing hypoxia. Our data indicate that variant O2 tensions induce specific and physiologically-focused transcript regulation patterns that may underpin important physiological mechanisms that connect higher neurological activity to astrocytic function and ambient oxygen environments. These strongly defined patterns demonstrate a strong bias for physiological transcript programs to pivot around the 4% O2 tension, while uni-modal programs that do not, appear more related to pathological actions. The functional interaction of these transcriptional ‘programs’ may serve to regulate the dynamic vascular responsivity of the central nervous system during periods of stress or heightened activity. Cerebral cortices were removed from 6-8-day-old Wistar rats, cortical astrocytes were isolated and these cells were maintained in a humidified incubator at 37°C (95% air; 5% CO2). This resulted in a culture of cortical astrocytes, as confirmed by visual inspection the following day and later by glial fibrillary acidic protein immunohistochemistry. Any cortical astrocyte culture that was not homogenous was disposed of and not used in this study. Culture medium was exchanged every 7 days and cells were grown in culture for up to 14 days. 24hr prior to experimentation cells were transferred to an hypoxic workstation equilibrated with either 1%, 4%, 9% or 21% O2 and 5% CO2, with the remaining percentage gas being N2. Once cortical astrocytes had reached approximately 90% confluence (75cm2 flask) they were subjected to hypoxia as above, washed with PBS, removed from the flask base with 0.05% trypsin-EDTA (Gibco) and then gently centrifuged (500xg). The cell pellet was re-suspended in PBS, centrifuged twice more to remove any traces of media, then triturated in 8-10 volumes of RNAlater (Applied Biosystems), frozen and stored at -80oC. Messenger RNA was amplified and labeled with biotin using the standard Illumina protocol (Illumina TotalPrep RNA Amplification Kit Ambion; Austin, TX, cat # IL1791), and hybridized to Illumina's Sentrix Rat Ref-12,v1 Expression BeadChips (Illumina, San Diego, CA). Three replicates from each treatment group (1%, 21%, 4%, and 9% O2) were hybridized and the data was extracted using the Illumina BeadStudio software(v3.4).

Project description:Adipose tissue is a plentiful and easily accessible source of mesenchymal stem cells that have been shown to be multi potent and possibly have immuno suppressive capacity(Zuk, Zhu et al. 2002; McIntosh, Zvonic et al. 2006; Prichard, Reichert et al. 2008). Several studies have identified hypoxia and the molecular effector of reduced oxygen tension, HIF1Î± to be essential in the differentiation processes, stem cell proliferation and survival as well as in maintenance of stem cell characteristics (Lennon, Edmison et al. 2001; Goda, Ryan et al. 2003; Wang, Fermor et al. 2005; Lin, Lee et al. 2006; Malladi, Xu et al. 2007; Ohnishi, Yasuda et al. 2007). The fact that oxygen has a central role in cell development and metabolism makes the regulation of oxygen tension a valuable tool in the attempt of exploiting stem cells to their full potential. In the current study we investigate the transcriptional changes caused by two weeks of monolayer hypoxic expansion of human adipose tissue derived stem cells (ASCs). Application of the XVivo hypoxic workstation (BioSpherix, Redfield, NY) made it possible to conduct the expansion of six ASC lines at four different hypoxic conditions in parallel covering the range from mild (15% oxygen) to full hypoxic (1% oxygen) conditions. In this comprehensive investigation the Illumina bead microarray platform was employed to give a profound and new insight in the molecular changes effectuated by hypoxic expansion. The findings of this study demonstrate the significance of biologic variation in the transcriptional response to mild hypoxic expansion and display evidence that full hypoxic growth conditions at 1% oxygen tension selects for a more prolific cell population of reduced chondrogenic potential. Keywords: hypoxia response To investigate the transcriptional response to hypoxia, adipose tissue derived stem cells (ASCs) from six female individuals were cultured for 14 days at different oxygen tensions (ambient, 15%, 10%, 5% and 1%). Gene expression levels at each oxygen tension were compared to ambient conditions (Ambient oxygen tension) using Illumina Human-6 v2.0 microarrays.

Project description:Preclinical studies of primary cancer cells are always done after tumors are removed from patients or animals at ambient atmospheric oxygen (O2, ~21%). However, O2 concentrations in organs are in the ~3-10% range, with most tumors in an hypoxic or 1-2% O2 environment in vivo. Although effects of O2 tension on tumor cell characteristics in vitro have been studied, these studies are done only after tumors are first collected and processed in ambient air. Similarly, sensitivity of primary cancer cells to anti-cancer agents is routinely examined at ambient O2. Here, using both mouse models and human cancers, we demonstrate that tumors collected, processed and propagated at physiologic (physioxia) O2 compared to ambient air display very distinct differences in key signaling networks including Lgr5/Wnt, Yap, and Nrf2/Keap1, nuclear reactive oxygen species levels, alternative splicing, and sensitivity to several targeted therapies including PIK3CAalpha-specific and EGFR inhibitors. Significance: Extra-physiologic oxygen shock/stress (EPHOSS), as noted in cells collected/processed under ambient air, has been demonstrated to have significant impact on numbers and engrafting ability of hematopoietic stem cells. We report deleterious effects of EPHOSS on cancer cell behavior and EPHOSS-mediated effects on cancer cells give misleading information on signaling pathway activation that could severely impact the relevance of these findings. Cancer cells under EPHOSS show higher proliferation rate compared to cells under physioxia and thus are sensitive to anti-proliferative agents. Thus, drugs that show effectiveness on cancer cells collected in ambient air and subjected to EPHOSS may not be effective or as relevant in vivo, results that could partially explain the limited clinical translation of laboratory findings. Evaluating cell signaling and effects of drugs on cancer cells under physiologic O2 prior to in vivo studies could substantially reduce cost and aid in drug discovery relevant to the actual physioxia/pathological status of the tumor cells in vivo.

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Multiple oxygen tension environments reveal diverse patterns of transcriptional regulation in primary astrocytes

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