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Tenascin C prevents acute aortic dissection in mice

ABSTRACT: Acute aortic dissection (AAD) is one of the major aortic diseases that occurs without a preceding symptom and often results in sudden death. Despite the recent advances in cardiovascular medicine, AAD remains a serious problem because its molecular pathogenesis is largely unknown. In this paper, we report our serendipitous discovery that stress-induced expression of tenascin C (TNC), a member of matricellular proteins, is the protection mechanism of aorta to prevent AAD. The aortic wall stress imposed by the aortic stiffening and the angiotensin II infusion caused the strong induction of TNC in wild type mouse aorta without gross morphological changes. While TNC knockout mice at the baseline showed no morphological, histological or biomechanical abnormalities of aorta, deletion of TNC gene rendered the aorta susceptible to AAD upon the aortic stress. The stressed TNC-null aorta showed the loss of the tensile strength due to the insufficient expression of extracellular matrix proteins and the exaggerated proinflammatory response before the onset of AAD. Therefore, TNC works as a stress-activated molecular damper both by reinforcing the tensile strength and by limiting the excessive proinflammatory response in aorta. Thus far, the molecular event that leads to the AAD development has been unclear because of the unpredictable nature of the AAD onset. This study sheds light on the previously unrecognized tissue protection mechanism that converts the potentially harmful stress response into the active reinforcement of the aorta, of which failure leads to the development of AAD. Although TNC is expressed in various tissues upon the mechanical and proinflammatory stimuli, its role has long been a mystery. Our data uncovered the adaptive role of TNC in aorta that must be resilient to the continuous hemodynamic and humoral stress for lifetime.

ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus

PROVIDER: GSE36899 | GEO | 2015/03/27

SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA157023

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Acute aortic dissection (AAD) is one of the major aortic diseases that occurs without a preceding symptom and often results in sudden death. Despite the recent advances in cardiovascular medicine, AAD remains a serious problem because its molecular pathogenesis is largely unknown. In this paper, we report our serendipitous discovery that stress-induced expression of tenascin C (TNC), a member of matricellular proteins, is the protection mechanism of aorta to prevent AAD. The aortic wall stress imposed by the aortic stiffening and the angiotensin II infusion caused the strong induction of TNC in wild type mouse aorta without gross morphological changes. While TNC knockout mice at the baseline showed no morphological, histological or biomechanical abnormalities of aorta, deletion of TNC gene rendered the aorta susceptible to AAD upon the aortic stress. The stressed TNC-null aorta showed the loss of the tensile strength due to the insufficient expression of extracellular matrix proteins and the exaggerated proinflammatory response before the onset of AAD. Therefore, TNC works as a stress-activated molecular damper both by reinforcing the tensile strength and by limiting the excessive proinflammatory response in aorta. Thus far, the molecular event that leads to the AAD development has been unclear because of the unpredictable nature of the AAD onset. This study sheds light on the previously unrecognized tissue protection mechanism that converts the potentially harmful stress response into the active reinforcement of the aorta, of which failure leads to the development of AAD. Although TNC is expressed in various tissues upon the mechanical and proinflammatory stimuli, its role has long been a mystery. Our data uncovered the adaptive role of TNC in aorta that must be resilient to the continuous hemodynamic and humoral stress for lifetime. We used periaortic application of 0.5 M CaCl2 to the infrarenal aorta or either wild type (WT) or tenascin C knockout (TNC-KO) mice to create the mouse model for stiffened aorta and infused the mice with AngII (1 µg/min/kg) for 1 week to apply the pathological stress on aorta (Ca+AngII). Mice were then killed with an overdose of pentobarbital to obtain the tissue samples. The suprarenal aortic samples, from the level of right renal artery to 10 mm above the right renal artery, and infrarenal aortic samples, from the level of left renal artery to 10 mm below the left renal artery, were collected and kept in RNAlater (Qiagen) until the extraction of total RNA using RNeasy (Qiagen). We obtained the RNA samples from 8 mice with Ca+AngII treatment and 5 mice without Ca+AngII treatment for each genotype. We pooled the RNA samples with the identical experimental condition to perform the transcriptome analysis using Mouse Genome 430 2.0 (Affymetrix). We obtained suprarenal aortic smooth muscle cells (ASMCs) from TNC-KO mice by enzymatic dispersion and cultured them in Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum. We cultured TNC-KO ASMCs in the presence or absence of exogenous TNC (10 µg/mL) and stimulated the cells with 10 ng/mL TNF-alpha for 24 h before obtaining total RNA using RNeasy. We used 3 independent ASMC cultures without the exogenous TNC and 4 independent cultures with the exogenous TNC. We hybridized each of the RNA samples individually to Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array (Affymetrix).

Project description:OBJECTIVE: When aortic cells are under stress, such as increased hemodynamic pressure, they adapt to the environment by modifying their functions, allowing the aorta to maintain its strength. To understand the regulation of this adaptive response, we examined the transcriptomic and epigenomic programs in aortic smooth muscle cells (SMCs) during the adaptive response to angiotensin II (AngII) infusion and determined its importance in protecting against aortic aneurysm and dissection. APPROACH AND RESULTS: In wild-type mice, AngII infusion increased medial thickness in the thoracic aorta. Single-cell RNA sequencing analysis revealed an adaptive response in thoracic SMCs characterized by the upregulation of genes with roles in wound healing, elastin and collagen production, proliferation, migration, cytoskeleton organization, cell-matrix focal adhesion, and AKT and TGF-β signaling. Further single-cell sequencing assay for transposase-accessible chromatin (scATAC-seq) analysis showed increased chromatin accessibility at the regulatory regions of adaptive genes and revealed the mechanical sensor YAP/TEADs as a top candidate transcription complex driving the increased abundance of these gene transcripts (e.g., Lox, Col5a2 and Tgfb2). In cultured human aortic SMCs, cyclic stretch activated YAP, which directly bound to the regulatory regions of the adaptive genes (e.g., Lox) and increased the abundance of their transcripts. Finally, SMC-specific Yap deletion in mice compromised this adaptive response in SMCs, leading to an increased incidence of aortic aneurysm and dissection and a trend of increased rupture. CONCLUSIONS: Aortic stress triggers the systemic epigenetic induction of adaptive response (e.g., wound healing, proliferation, and matrix organization) in thoracic aortic SMCs, that depends on functional biomechanical signal transduction (e.g., YAP signaling). Our study highlights the importance of the adaptive response in maintaining aortic homeostasis and preventing aortic disease development in mice.

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Tenascin C prevents acute aortic dissection in mice

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