Project description:Animals. Male Sprague–Dawley rats (Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington, MA) weighing about 250g were used. The study was approved by the Thomas Jefferson University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee and was conducted in accordance with the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The animals were housed in Thomas Jefferson University's animal care facilities. Animals were anesthetized with isoflurane dissolved in O2 (5% induction; 1% maintenance) and one femoral artery and vein were cannulated (PE-50 tubing) via a small medial incision for measurement of arterial pressure and infusion of drugs, respectively. The cannulae were run subcutaneously to an exit incision between the scapulae. The leg wound was sutured and topical anesthetic (lidocaine) was applied to both skin incisions. Following surgery, after one hour of stable and normal resting blood pressure and heart rate, intravenous infusion was initiated of approximately 1 mL saline, as a control, or phenylephrine (200 µg/mL; 1 mL/hr), to induce hypertension. We followed standard methods in the use of phenylephrine (PE) to elevate blood pressure. PE does not cross the blood brain barrier and the elevated blood pressure it produces has been shown to cause molecular effects in the NTS principally via increased baroreceptor afferent drive by both pharmacological and sinoaortic denervation studies. We titered the PE dose to maintain intermediate levels of elevated blood pressure 25 mmHg above resting blood pressure. Keywords: Hypertension, time series In keeping with practice of previous studies we induced a defined period of hypertension and then measured effects on the NTS at time points following that standard period of blood pressure disturbance. The previous studies show that blood pressure elevations of 25-30mmHg above baseline induce c-fos expression in the NTS after 30-40 minutes. Based on this result, we estimated that transcriptional regulation in the NTS might be observed after 60 minutes. For this reason we used a standard 60 minute acute hypertension experimental treatment. We took the first samples immediately after the 60 minutes of PE or saline infusion at 15 minute intervals. Our experimental design is for time series data at 60, 75, 90, 105 and 120 minutes (see Figure 1). Gas anaesthesia has previously been reported to induce p-ERK1/2 phosphorylation in some central autonomic structures so the present study reports only differential data that compares to controls that experience the same surgery and fluid (saline) infusion. In order to maximize the statistical power of the experimental design and capture biological variability we did not pool mRNA across animals, but used one array per animal. Four control and four treated animals were taken for each time point and condition for a total of 40 animals. In our previous studies, we found that four replicates in each condition were necessary to accurately and reproducibly measure small, physiologically relevant fold changes as low as 1.2-fold.

Project description:The Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase II is expressed in smooth muscle and believed to mediate intracellular calcium handling and calcium-dependent gene transcription. CaMKII is activated by Angiotensin-II. The multifunctional calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII) is activated by Angiotensin-II (Ang-II) in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), but its impact on hypertension remains unknown. In our transgenic mice that express the inhibitor peptide CaMKIIN in smooth muscle (TG SM-CaMKIIN), the blood pressure response to chronic Ang-II infusion was significantly reduced as compared to littermate controls. Surprisingly, examination of blood pressure and heart rate under ganglionic blockade revealed a key role for VSMC CaMKII in efferent sympathetic outflow in response to Ang II hypertension. Consistently, the efferent splanchnic nerve activity and plasma phenylephrine concentrations were significantly lower in TG SM-CaMKIIN mice as compared to littermates. Moreover, the aortic depressor nerve activity was reset in hypertensive wild type animals, but not in TG SM-CaMKIIN mice, suggesting that changes in baroreceptor wall activity may be responsible for the blood pressure difference in Ang-II hypertension. The pulse wave velocity, a measure of vascular wall stiffness in vivo, was increased in aortas of hypertensive compared to normotensive WT animals. However, Ang-II infusion did not alter the pulse wave velocity in transgenic mice, suggesting that CaMKII in VSMC controls structural smooth muscle genes. Accordingly, analysis of gene expression changes in aortas from wild type and TG SM-CaMKIIN hypertensive mice demonstrated that CaMKII inhibition mainly altered the expression of muscle contractile proteins. In contrast, TG SM-CaMKIIN aortas were protected from the Ang-II induced upregulation of genes linked to proliferation, suggesting that CaMKII inhibition prevents the Ang-II-induced reprogramming of smooth muscle cell gene expression towards a proliferative phenotype.

Project description:The Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase II is expressed in smooth muscle and believed to mediate intracellular calcium handling and calcium-dependent gene transcription. CaMKII is activated by Angiotensin-II. The multifunctional calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase II (CaMKII) is activated by Angiotensin-II (Ang-II) in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), but its impact on hypertension remains unknown. In our transgenic mice that express the inhibitor peptide CaMKIIN in smooth muscle (TG SM-CaMKIIN), the blood pressure response to chronic Ang-II infusion was significantly reduced as compared to littermate controls. Surprisingly, examination of blood pressure and heart rate under ganglionic blockade revealed a key role for VSMC CaMKII in efferent sympathetic outflow in response to Ang II hypertension. Consistently, the efferent splanchnic nerve activity and plasma phenylephrine concentrations were significantly lower in TG SM-CaMKIIN mice as compared to littermates. Moreover, the aortic depressor nerve activity was reset in hypertensive wild type animals, but not in TG SM-CaMKIIN mice, suggesting that changes in baroreceptor wall activity may be responsible for the blood pressure difference in Ang-II hypertension. The pulse wave velocity, a measure of vascular wall stiffness in vivo, was increased in aortas of hypertensive compared to normotensive WT animals. However, Ang-II infusion did not alter the pulse wave velocity in transgenic mice, suggesting that CaMKII in VSMC controls structural smooth muscle genes. Accordingly, analysis of gene expression changes in aortas from wild type and TG SM-CaMKIIN hypertensive mice demonstrated that CaMKII inhibition mainly altered the expression of muscle contractile proteins. In contrast, TG SM-CaMKIIN aortas were protected from the Ang-II induced upregulation of genes linked to proliferation, suggesting that CaMKII inhibition prevents the Ang-II-induced reprogramming of smooth muscle cell gene expression towards a proliferative phenotype. 5 WT C57Bl/6 and 5 mice that express the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase II peptide inhibitor CaMKIIN in smooth muscle only (TG SM-CaMKIIN) were infused with 1.25 ug/kg/min Angiotensin-II by osmotic minipump for 14 days. 5 WT and 5 transgenic mice infused with normal saline served as controls. The mice were sacrificed on day 14 and the thoracic aortas isolated. RNA was isolated and pooled for the following groups: WT (wild type), C (TG SM-CaMKIIN), WT-A (WT with Angiotensin-II), C-A (TG SM-CaMKIIN + Angiotensin-II)

Project description:Background: Preeclampsia (PE) is a placental disease characterized by hypertension and proteinuria in pregnant women, which is associated with a high maternal and infantile morbidity. However, circulating biomarkers able to predict the prognosis of PE are lacking. Methods: Thirty-eight women were included in the study. They consisted of 19 patients with PE (13 with severe PE and 6 women with non-severe PE) and 19 gestational age-matched normal pregnancy controls. We measured coagulation pathway, endothelial responses and microparticle release and circulating gene expression in PE patient groups and normotensive controls. Results: The measurement of markers associated with coagulation pathway, endothelial activation and circulating microparticles enabled to discriminate PE from normal pregnancy but were not sufficient to distinguish severe from non-severe PE. PE patients also exhibited a specific transcriptional program distinct from that of control women and subtle differences were observed between severe and non-severe PE. Functional annotation of the up-modulated signature in PE highlighted two main functions related to ribosome and complement. Importantly, we found that 8 genes were specifically up-modulated in severe preeclampsia. Among these genes, the expression of VSIG4 was significantly increased in patients with severe preeclampsia in comparison with controls and patients with non-severe preeclampsia. Conclusion: Using transcriptional signatures of blood samples, we identified the gene encoding the estrogen receptor as a potential diagnostic marker of severe preeclampsia. In addition, the determination of this gene may improve the prognostic assessment of severe preeclampsia. Thirty-eight women were included in the study: 19 patients with PE, including 6 women with non-severe PE and 13 with severe PE, and 19 women with normal pregnancy (NP) selected according to age, weight, smoking status, race, gestational age at the inclusion, and blood pH (Table 1 of manuscript). Women with NP had no history of medical illness or medication, and received routing prenatal care. The diagnostic of PE was based on a blood pressure of M-bM-^IM-% 140/90 mmHg taken twice, uricemia above normal laboratory range (120-420 M-BM-5mol/L), and proteinuria higher than 300 mg in a 24 hour-collection, occurring after 20 gestational weeks in previously normotensive women (Table 2). The criteria used to define severe PE included one of the following conditions: a blood pressure higher than 160/110 mmHg, a proteinuria higher than 1500 mg/24h), a multisystem disorder, maternal cerebral symptoms (seizures, stroke) or intrauterine growth restriction below the 3M-BM-0 percentile. Women with multiple gestations, fetal congenital malformations/chromosomal abnormalities, recent infection, antiphospholipid antibodies, trauma, drug or alcohol abuse during pregnancy, preexisting hypertension, thrombophilia with PE history, or women receiving anticoagulant or antiaggregation therapy were excluded from the study. Two microarrays (one non-severe PE and one normal) were discarded from the analysis for technical reasons. Thus, only 36 microarrays are included here.

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Hypertensive Study

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