Project description:<p><strong>BACKGROUND:</strong> Calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS) is the most prevalent valvular heart disease in developed countries with significant morbidity and mortality. Given the poor understanding of the pathophysiological processes leading to CAVS, we utilized a joint non-targeted metabolomics and targeted lipidomics approach to better characterize the metabolic perturbations involved in its development and progression.</p><p><strong>METHODS:</strong> We collected human aortic valve tissue from 106 patients undergoing aortic valve replacement surgery. Our cohort represented aortic valvular hemodynamics from mild to severe aortic stenosis with varying degrees of valvular calcification.</p><p><strong>RESULTS:</strong> Seventy-two significantly differential (p<0.01) metabolites across different stages of CAVS severity were filtered and identified from the tissue metabolome. Each stage of valvular stenosis was characterized by a distinct metabolic signature. The top three perturbed metabolic pathways in the setting of CAVS involved glycerophospholipid metabolism, linoleic acid metabolism and primary bile acid biosynthesis. The lysophosphatidic acid species (LysoPA) exhibited significant (p<0.05) association with CAVS severity and were also found to select patients with accelerated rate of CAVS progression. Two LysoPA species namely, 18:2 LysoPA and 20:4 LysoPA, exhibited potential to serve as biomarkers of CAVS severity.</p><p><strong>CONCLUSIONS:</strong> The present study reports the largest and most comprehensive metabolomics analysis of human aortic valve stenosis that highlights the dysregulated LysoPA pathway involved in the pathogenesis of CAVS.</p>
Project description:Calcific aortic valve disease is the most common form of valvular heart disease in the Western World. Milder degrees of aortic valve calcification is called aortic sclerosis and severe calcification with impaired leaflet motion is called aortic stenosis. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying cdevelopment of calcified aortic valve disease in humans.
Project description:To examine molecular mechanisms of aortic valve stenosis in mice with hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, RNA-Seq was used during the developmental phase of stenosis to identify new gene targets.
Project description:Although calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS) is the most prevalent valvular heart disease, the molecular mechanisms underlying aortic valve calcification remain unknown. Here, we found a significant elevation in stanniocalcin-1 (STC1) expression in the valve interstitial cells (VICs) of calcific aortic valves by combined analysis of our comprehensive gene expression data and microarray datasets reported previously. Immunohistochemical staining showed that STC1 was located around the calcific area in the aortic valves of patients with CAVS. In vitro experiments using inhibitors and siRNA targeting osteoblast differentiation signaling revealed that activation of the Akt/STC1 axis was essential for runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2) induction in the VICs. RNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis of STC1-knocked down VICs in osteoblast differentiation medium resulted in silencing of the induction of osteoarthritis signaling-related genes, including RUNX2 and COL10A1. STC1 depletion in the murine CAVS model improved aortic valve dysfunction with high peak velocity and valve thickening and suppressed the appearance of osteochondrocytes. STC1-deficient mice also exhibited complete calcification abolishment, although partial valve thickening by aortic valve injury was observed. Our findings suggest that STC1 may be a critical factor in determining valve calcification and a novel target for preventing the transition to severe CAVS with calcification. We analyzed the gene expression profiles of the valve interstitial cells (VICs) isolated from noncalcific and calcific areas in calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS) donors using a gene microarray.
Project description:Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common valvular heart disease in the aging population, ranging from initial aortic valve sclerosis to advanced aortic valve stenosis (AVS), but its underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. The present study aimed to explore the differentially expressed long non-coding RNAs and genes in CAVD.
Project description:We compared 15 severely diseased aortic valve sample to 16 control aortic valve samples using microRNA microarrays (Affymetrix GeneChip miRNA 2.0). The diseased samples were taken from areas of severe disease of aortic valves removed at aortic valve replacement for severe aortic stenosis. Control samples were obtained from macroscopically normal post-mortem aortic valves. In addition, we compared areas of mild or moderate disease on valves from participants with severe aortic stenosis to the same participant's severely diseased sample in seven participants.
Project description:<p>Calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS) is a common and life-threatening heart disease with no drug that can stop or delay its progression. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) on 1,009 cases and 1,017 ethnically-matched controls was performed to identify susceptibility genes for CAVS. </p>
Project description:We report transcriptional profiles of aortic valve tissue from calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) and normal control (non-CAVD). We collected the aortic valve tissues from five patients with CAVD who underwent aortic valve replacement due to severe aortic valve stenosis. Aortic valve samples from patients with non-calcified aortic valve resection due to heart transplantation (recipient heart) or aortic dissection were collected as the control (non-CAVD). The inclusion criteria for CAVD group were as follows: 50-75 years old; undergoing aortic valve replacement due to severe AVS with significantly valvular calcification. The inclusion criteria for non-CAVD group were as follows: non-calcified aortic valve resection due to heart transplantation (recipient heart) or aortic dissection. For each sample, total RNA was extracted, a cDNA library was generated, and an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 was used to sequence each sample. Stringtie software was used to count the fragment within each gene, and TMM algorithm was used for normalization. Differential expression analysis was performed using R package edgeR. Differentially expressed RNAs with |log2(FC)| value >1, q value [false discovery rate (FDR) adjusted P-value] <0.05, and one group’s mean fragments per kilobase of exon per million reads mapped (FPKM) >1, were assigned as differentially-expressed genes (DEGs).