Project description:Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease is a severe, monogenetically inherited kidney and liver disease and PCK rats carrying the orthologous mutant gene serve as a model of human disease. We combined selective MALDI imaging of sulfated kidney lipids and Fisher discriminant analysis of imaging data sets for identification of candidate lipid markers of progressive disease in PCK rats. Our study highlights strong increases in lower mass lipids as main classifiers of cystic disease. Structure determination by high resolution mass spectrometry identifies these altered lipids as taurine-conjugated bile acids. Beside increased levels of serum-cholesterol these sulfated lipids are selectively elevated in the PCK rat model but not in models of related hepatorenal fibrocystic diseases suggesting that they be molecular markers of the disease. Genome-scale gene expression profiling of PCK and SD livers as control was performed to attempt elucidation of some of the underlying mechanisms leading to increases of cholesterol and taurine-conjugated bile acids in the PCK rat. Several pathways were found to be changed in cystic livers with up regulation or down regulation of important gene sets. Enhanced expression of steroid biosynthesis genes might result in the observed increased levels of cholesterol. In contrast, primary bile acid biosynthesis was found to be down regulated in diseased livers. These findings might be explained by compensatory mechanisms of liver metabolism to reduce toxic levels of accumulated bile acids. Snap-frozen liver tissue of 10 week old rats were subjected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays to perform genome-scale gene expression profiling of n = 6 diseased PCK and n = 6 Sprague Dawley rat livers as control.
Project description:Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease is a severe, monogenetically inherited kidney and liver disease and PCK rats carrying the orthologous mutant gene serve as a model of human disease. We combined selective MALDI imaging of sulfated kidney lipids and Fisher discriminant analysis of imaging data sets for identification of candidate lipid markers of progressive disease in PCK rats. Our study highlights strong increases in lower mass lipids as main classifiers of cystic disease. Structure determination by high resolution mass spectrometry identifies these altered lipids as taurine-conjugated bile acids. Beside increased levels of serum-cholesterol these sulfated lipids are selectively elevated in the PCK rat model but not in models of related hepatorenal fibrocystic diseases suggesting that they be molecular markers of the disease. Genome-scale gene expression profiling of PCK and SD livers as control was performed to attempt elucidation of some of the underlying mechanisms leading to increases of cholesterol and taurine-conjugated bile acids in the PCK rat. Several pathways were found to be changed in cystic livers with up regulation or down regulation of important gene sets. Enhanced expression of steroid biosynthesis genes might result in the observed increased levels of cholesterol. In contrast, primary bile acid biosynthesis was found to be down regulated in diseased livers. These findings might be explained by compensatory mechanisms of liver metabolism to reduce toxic levels of accumulated bile acids.
Project description:During aging, the kidney undergoes functional and physiological changes that are closely affiliated with chronic kidney disease (CKD). There is increasing evidence supporting the role of lipid or lipid-derived mediators in the pathogenesis of CKD and other aging-related diseases. To understand the role of lipids in various metabolic processes during kidney aging, we conducted MALDI imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI-IMS) analysis in kidneys harvested from young (2 months old, n=3) and old mice (24 months old, n=3). MALDI-IMS analysis showed an increase in ceramide level and a decrease in sphingomyelin (SM) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) levels in kidneys of old mice. The increased expression of cPLA2 and SMPD1 protein in aged kidney was confirmed by immunohistochemistry and western blot analysis. Our MALDI-IMS data showed the altered distribution of lipids in aged kidney as indicative of aging-related functional changes of the kidney. Combined analysis of MALDI-IMS and IHC confirmed lipidomic changes and expression levels of responsible enzymes as well as morphological changes.
Project description:Inflammation is a key component of pathological angiogenesis. Here we induce cornea neovascularisation using sutures placed into the cornea, and sutures are removed to induce a regression phase. We used whole transcriptome microarray to monitor gene expression profies of several genes
Project description:Global gene expression profiling in PPAR-γ agonist-treated kidneys in an orthologous rat model of human autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease
Project description:Global gene expression profiling in early-stage polycystic kidney disease in the Han:SPRD Cy rat identifies a role for RXR signaling