Project description:Renal disease is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. BMP2 and its downstream effectors are strong implicators of pathological calcificatoin. We profiled miRNAs from Klotho mutant mice and from health mice to determine any potential biomarkers for predicting the progression of pathological calcification through targeting of BMP2 and its downstream effectors.
Project description:Engineered exosomes reprogrammed Gli1+ cells to promote SMC reconstruction and inhibit calcification in TEVBs and autologous pathological vessels.
Project description:Vascular calcification is a common and life-threatening complication in patients with chronic kidney disease, in which osteogenic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) plays an essential role. Paraspeckle protein NONO is a multifunctional protein involved in many nuclear biological processes but its role in vascular calcification and osteogenic differentiation of VSMCs remains unclear.By RNA sequencing analysis in primary mouse VSMCs with or without NONO knockout, we observed significant changes of genes important in regulating vascular function and osteogenic differentiation of VSMCs.
Project description:The role of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) remains largely elusive. This study aims to report a novel therapeutic lncRNA, SNHG3, and elucidate its role in CAVD. Based on high-throughput transcriptomic sequencing of human aortic valves, SNHG3 is among the most highly expressed lncRNAs in CAVD. Furthermore, SNHG3 upregulation is verified in human calcified aortic valves, osteoblastic human aortic valve interstitial cells (hVICs), and aortic valve tissues in CAVD mice. Moreover, knockdown of SNHG3 with antisense oligonucleotide markedly ameliorates aortic valve calcification in high cholesterol diet-treated ApoE-/- mice, as evidenced by reduced calcium deposition in the aortic valve leaflets, improved echocardiographic parameters, and decreased osteogenic differentiation markers (RUNX2, osteopontin, and osteocalcin) in aortic valves. Consistent with these in vivo findings, SNHG3 overexpression aggravates the calcification of hVICs, while knockdown of SNHG3 alleviates the process of differential calcification. Transcriptomics sequencing, gene set enrichment analyses, RNA-pull down, RNA immunoprecipitation and chromatin immunoprecipitation-qPCR show that SNHG3 physically interacts with polycomb repressive complex 2 to suppress the H3K27 tri-methylation BMP2 locus, which in turn activates BMP2 expression and signaling pathways. Taken together, SNHG3 promotes aortic valve calcification by upregulating BMP2, which might be a novel therapeutic target in human CAVD.
Project description:Estrogen Receptor B (ERB) is a member of the nuclear receptor family of homeostatic regulators that is frequently lost in breast cancer (BC), where its presence correlates with a better prognosis and a less aggressive clinical outcome of the disease. Contrary to ERα, its closest homolog, ERB shows also significant estrogen-independent activities, including the ability to inhibit cell cycle progression and to regulate gene transcription in the absence of the ligand. Investigating the nature and extent of this constitutive activity of ERB in BC MCF-7 cells by miRNA-Seq, we identified 127 miRNAs differentially expressed in ERB+ vs ERB- cells in the absence of ligand, including upregulated oncosuppressor miRs, such miR-30a, and downregulated onco-miRs, like miR-21. In addition, a significant fraction of >1,600 unique proteins identified in these cells by iTRAQ (isobaric Tag for Relative and Absolute Quantitation) quantitative proteomics was either increased or decreased by ERB, revealing regulation of multiple cell pathways by ligand-free receptor. Transcriptome analysis indicates that for a large number of proteins regulated by ERB the corresponding mRNAs are unaffected, including a large number of putative targets of ERB-regulated miRNAs, indicating a central role of miRNAs in mediating BC cell proteome regulation by ERB. Expression of a mimic of miR-30a-5p, a direct target and downstream effector of ERB in BC, led to the identification of several target transcripts of this miRNA, including 11 encoding proteins whose intracellular concentration is significantly affected by unliganded receptor. These results demonstrate a significant effect of ligand-free ERB on BC cell functions via modulation of the cell proteome and suggest that miRNA regulation may represent a key event in the control of the biological and clinical phenotype of hormone-responsive BC by this nuclear receptor.
Project description:Vascular calcification, the ectopic deposition of calcium in blood vessels, develops in association with various metabolic diseases and atherosclerosis. Because it often causes stiffness and remodeling of the blood vessels, vascular calcification increases morbidity and mortality. Both miRNA and mRNA microarrays (Series GSE74755) were performed with rat VSMCs and reciprocally regulated pairs of miRNA and mRNA were selected after bioinformatic analysis.
Project description:Reconstruction of bone defects and compensation of deficient repair mechanisms represent important goals within the field of regenerative medicine and require novel safe strategies for translation into the clinic. Therefore, we generated a nonviral osteogenic gene therapeutic (hybrid) vector system, combining an improved bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP2) gene cassette and pro-osteogenic microRNAs. The hybrid vectors were tested for their functionality and osteogenic differentiation potential in C2C12 and C3H/10T1/2 via alkaline phosphatase enzyme activity assay, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis of miRNA and osteogenic marker expression. In a mouse ectopic bone formation model, osteoinduction in transfected muscle tissue was analysed via micro computed tomography scans and histological staining. All tested hybrid vector systems led to an increase in BMP2 protein overexpression in C2C12 and C3H/10T1/2, when compared with miRNA-lacking constructs. Incorporated miRNAs were found to be efficiently upregulated. Distinct intra- and extracellular localization preferences were observed. The hybrid vector consisting of BMP2 and miR-590 revealed highest potential of inducing osteogenic differentiation. The favourable effect of combining overexpression of BMP2 and miRNAs has been shown in vitro and in vivo. Induction of mineralization was observed in an ectopic bone mouse model, although high variability in terms of size and shape indicates potential for improvement regarding plasmid administration and retention. We believe this study contributes in a valuable way to the preclinical knowledge of nonviral gene therapy for tissue regeneration. Also, we hope to encourage additional research on multi-target gene therapeutic approaches.
Project description:To identify osteoblast specific miRNAs that can contribute to osteoblastogenesis by post-transcriptionally regulates their targets, BMP2 are treated to C2C12 for 72 hours and performed miRNA microarray. C2C12 cells were treated with vehicles or BMP2 (300 ng/mL) supplemented alpha-MEM media for 72 days and total RNA was harvested and performed exiqon miRNA microarray. Duplicates were used for each condition. Dye swaps were done.
Project description:Mutations in repulsive guidance molecule c (RGMc) / hemojuvelin (HJV) cause juvenile hemochromatosis, an aggravated iron overload disorder that presents early in life. Patients with juvenile hemochromatosis, and RGMc knockout mice, have diminished expression of the key iron-regulatory peptide, hepcidin. This suggests that RGMc plays a critical role in the regulation of iron homeostasis; however the mechanisms of RGMc actions are unknown. Recent studies have shown that RGMc directly binds to the growth factors, bone morphogenetic protein 2 and 6 (BMP2 and BMP6), and it is possible that this interaction regulates aspects of iron metabolism. We used microarrays to examine the effects of RGMc on BMP2- and BMP6-mediated gene expression. In our experimental model we treated Hep3B liver cells that had been serum starved for 16 hours as follows: (1) un-treated, (2) BMP2, (3) BMP2 + 10-fold molar excess of Noggin (a potent BMP2 inhibitor), (4) BMP2 + 20-fold molar excess of RGMc, (5) BMP6, (6) BMP6 + 10-fold molar excess of Noggin, (7) BMP6 + 20-fold molar excess of RGMc. Binding was allowed to proceed for BMP and Noggin or RGMc for 3 hr at 20°C prior to treatment of Hep3B cells. Treatment time was 4 hr at which cells were collected for RNA isolation.
Project description:The transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) superfamily proteins are potent regulators of cellular development and differentiation. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) play widespread roles in spatial-temporal regulation of early development. However, the roles of lncRNAs regulated by nodal/TGF-β signaling is still elusive. Here, we showed a nodal-driven Smad induced lncRNA in mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs), lncRNA-Smad7, which is divergently transcribed to Smad7, regulates cell fate determination through repressing Bmp2. Depletion of lncRNA-Smad7 dramatically impairs cardiomyocyte differentiation in mESCs. Moreover, LncRNA-Smad7 represses Bmp2 expression and binds at the promoter region of Bmp2. Importantly, knock-down Bmp2 rescues the defect of cardiomyocyte differentiation. Hence, we showed that lncRNA-Smad7 is antagonistic to BMP signaling in mESCs. Furthermore, lncRNA-Smad7 regulates cell fate determination between osteocytes and myocytes formation in C2C12 cells by repressing Bmp2. Thus, we provide new insights regarding the antagonistic effects between nodal/TGF-β and BMP signaling via lncRNA-Smad7.