Project description:Context: Increased uterine stretch appears to increase the risk of preterm labour, but the mechanism is unknown. Objectives: To identify a targetable mechanism mediating the effect of stretch on human myometrium. Design: Myometrial explants, prepared from biopsies obtained at elective caesarean delivery, were either studied acutely, or were maintained in prolonged culture (up to 65 h) under tension with either a 0.6 g or 2.4 g mass, and compared using in vitro contractility, whole genome array, and qRT-PCR. Results: Increased stretch for 24 or 65 h increased potassium-induced and oxytocin-induced contractility. Gene array identified 62 differentially expressed transcripts after 65 h exposure to increased stretch. Two probes for gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), a known stimulatory agonist of smooth muscle, were among the top five up-regulated by stretch (3.4-fold and 2.0-fold). Up-regulation of GRP by stretch was confirmed in a separate series of 10 samples using qRT-PCR (2.8-fold, P = 0.01). GRP stimulated contractions acutely when added to freshly obtained myometrial strips in 3 out of 9 cases, but Western blot demonstrated expression of the GRP receptor in 9 out of 9 cases. Prolonged incubation of stretched explants in the GRP antagonists PD-176252 or RC-3095 (65 and 24 h respectively) significantly reduced potassium chloride and oxytocin-induced contractility. Conclusion: Stretch of human myometrium increases contractility and stimulates the expression of a known smooth muscle stimulatory agonist, GRP. Incubation of myometrium in GRP receptor antagonists ameliorates the effect of stretch. GRP may be a target for novel therapies to reduce the risk of preterm birth in multiple pregnancy. 9 paired samples of human myometrium cultured under low (0.6g) or high (2.4g) tension
Project description:Context: Increased uterine stretch appears to increase the risk of preterm labour, but the mechanism is unknown. Objectives: To identify a targetable mechanism mediating the effect of stretch on human myometrium. Design: Myometrial explants, prepared from biopsies obtained at elective caesarean delivery, were either studied acutely, or were maintained in prolonged culture (up to 65 h) under tension with either a 0.6 g or 2.4 g mass, and compared using in vitro contractility, whole genome array, and qRT-PCR. Results: Increased stretch for 24 or 65 h increased potassium-induced and oxytocin-induced contractility. Gene array identified 62 differentially expressed transcripts after 65 h exposure to increased stretch. Two probes for gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP), a known stimulatory agonist of smooth muscle, were among the top five up-regulated by stretch (3.4-fold and 2.0-fold). Up-regulation of GRP by stretch was confirmed in a separate series of 10 samples using qRT-PCR (2.8-fold, P = 0.01). GRP stimulated contractions acutely when added to freshly obtained myometrial strips in 3 out of 9 cases, but Western blot demonstrated expression of the GRP receptor in 9 out of 9 cases. Prolonged incubation of stretched explants in the GRP antagonists PD-176252 or RC-3095 (65 and 24 h respectively) significantly reduced potassium chloride and oxytocin-induced contractility. Conclusion: Stretch of human myometrium increases contractility and stimulates the expression of a known smooth muscle stimulatory agonist, GRP. Incubation of myometrium in GRP receptor antagonists ameliorates the effect of stretch. GRP may be a target for novel therapies to reduce the risk of preterm birth in multiple pregnancy.
Project description:Uterine stretch is thought to induce preterm labor in women with twin and higher order pregnancies, but the pathophysiology remains unclear. We investigated the pathogenesis of stretch-induced preterm birth for the first time in a pregnant nonhuman primate model. Eleven chronically catheterized pregnant monkeys (Macaca nemestrina) at 118-125 days gestation (term=172 days) received either: 1) inflation of intra-amniotic balloons (N=6) or 2) saline inoculation (N=5). Cesarean section and fetal necropsy was performed due to preterm labor or to collect tissues, except in one case where the animal delivered spontaneously, reducing samples for microarray analysis to ten (five stretch and five control animals). Amniotic fluid and maternal plasma were analyzed for multiple cytokines and prostaglandins using Luminex, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and Analysis of Covariance. Ribonucleic acid was extracted from the myometrium in the lower uterus at Cesarean section and analyzed by microarray and quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.
Project description:Analysis of ex vivo isolated lymphatic endothelial cells from the dermis of patients to define type 2 diabetes-induced changes. Results preveal aberrant dermal lymphangiogenesis and provide insight into its role in the pathogenesis of persistent skin inflammation in type 2 diabetes. The ex vivo dLEC transcriptome reveals a dramatic influence of the T2D environment on multiple molecular and cellular processes, mirroring the phenotypic changes seen in T2D affected skin. The positively and negatively correlated dLEC transcripts directly cohere to prolonged inflammatory periods and reduced infectious resistance of patients´ skin. Further, lymphatic vessels might be involved in tissue remodeling processes during T2D induced skin alterations associated with impaired wound healing and altered dermal architecture. Hence, dermal lymphatic vessels might be directly associated with T2D disease promotion. Global gene expression profile of normal dermal lymphatic endothelial cells (ndLECs) compared to dermal lymphatic endothelial cells derived from type 2 diabetic patients (dLECs).Quadruplicate biological samples were analyzed from human lymphatic endothelial cells (4 x diabetic; 4 x non-diabetic). subsets: 1 disease state set (dLECs), 1 control set (ndLECs)
Project description:Asthma is a chronic inflammatory airway disease characterized by airway inflammation and remodeling. The role of 15-oxo-5Z,8Z,11Z,13E-eicosatetraenoic acid (15-oxoETE), a 15-HETE metabolite catalyzed by 15-prostaglandin dehydrogenase (15-PGDH), has been relatively unexplored in asthma. In this study, we used RNA-seq to explore the effect of 15-KETE on the transcriptome of airway epithelial cells, aiming to identify its potential downstream targets and mechanisms of action.
Project description:Gene expression profiling of immortalized human mesenchymal stem cells with hTERT/E6/E7 transfected MSCs. hTERT may change gene expression in MSCs. Goal was to determine the gene expressions of immortalized MSCs.
Project description:We have sequenced miRNA libraries from human embryonic, neural and foetal mesenchymal stem cells. We report that the majority of miRNA genes encode mature isomers that vary in size by one or more bases at the 3’ and/or 5’ end of the miRNA. Northern blotting for individual miRNAs showed that the proportions of isomiRs expressed by a single miRNA gene often differ between cell and tissue types. IsomiRs were readily co-immunoprecipitated with Argonaute proteins in vivo and were active in luciferase assays, indicating that they are functional. Bioinformatics analysis predicts substantial differences in targeting between miRNAs with minor 5’ differences and in support of this we report that a 5’ isomiR-9-1 gained the ability to inhibit the expression of DNMT3B and NCAM2 but lost the ability to inhibit CDH1 in vitro. This result was confirmed by the use of isomiR-specific sponges. Our analysis of the miRGator database indicates that a small percentage of human miRNA genes express isomiRs as the dominant transcript in certain cell types and analysis of miRBase shows that 5’ isomiRs have replaced canonical miRNAs many times during evolution. This strongly indicates that isomiRs are of functional importance and have contributed to the evolution of miRNA genes
Project description:The human uterus undergoes profound physiological tissue remodelling during pregnancy. In the myometrium, altered gene expression must underlie these extensive molecular and structural changes. The purpose of this study was to compare expression profiles of pregnant and non-pregnant myometrium, in order to identify genes that participate in this process. mRNA from 14 non-pregnant and four pregnant human myometrial samples were analysed using a human UniGEM V microarray with 7075 cDNA elements. A total of 602 transcripts from the microarray were up-regulated >=2.0-fold in pregnant myometrium, with 37 transcripts up-regulated >=4.0-fold. In contrast, eight transcripts were down-regulated >=2.0-fold in pregnancy. To ensure accurate representation of differential gene expression, Northern blot analyses using total RNA from 16 samples of non-pregnant and pregnant myometrium were used to examine mRNA levels for four of the genes that were differentially expressed by microarray analysis, namely plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1), milk fat globule-EGF factor 8 protein (MFGE8), secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (sFRP4) and estrogen receptor {alpha} (ER{alpha}). On the microarray these transcripts were up-regulated 7.5-fold for PAI-1 and 4.9-fold for MFGE8 in pregnant myometrium, and down-regulated 3.7-fold for sFRP4 and 2.9-fold for ER{alpha} in pregnancy. Northern blot analyses confirmed these changes. Our findings suggest that microarray technology is a useful tool for examining global changes in gene expression that occur as the myometrium differentiates from non-pregnant to pregnant status. Defining these changes provides new insight into the structural and functional adaptations of human myometrium during pregnancy. Keywords: other
Project description:Transcriptional profiling of human mesenchymal stem cells comparing normoxic MSCs cells with hypoxic MSCs cells. Hypoxia may inhibit senescence of MSCs during expansion. Goal was to determine the effects of hypoxia on global MSCs gene expression.