ABSTRACT
All cells generate contractile tension. This strain is crucial for mechanically controlling the cell shape, function and survival. In this study, the CellDrum technology quantifying cell's (the cellular) mechanical tension on a pico-scale was used to investigate the effect of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on human aortic endothelial cell (HAoEC) tension. The LPS effect during gram-negative sepsis on endothelial cells is cell contraction causing endothelium permeability increase. The aim was to finding out whether recombinant activated protein C (rhAPC) would reverse the endothelial cell response in an in-vitro sepsis model. In this study, the established in-vitro sepsis model was confirmed by interleukin 6 (IL-6) levels at the proteomic and genomic levels by ELISA, real time-PCR and reactive oxygen species (ROS) activation by florescence staining. The thrombin cellular contraction effect on endothelial cells was used as a positive control when the CellDrum technology was applied. Additionally, the Ras homolog gene family, member A (RhoA) mRNA expression level was checked by real time-PCR to support contractile tension results. According to contractile tension results, the mechanical predominance of actin stress fibers was a reason of the increased endothelial contractile tension leading to enhanced endothelium contractility and thus permeability enhancement. The originality of this data supports firstly the basic measurement principles of the CellDrum technology and secondly that rhAPC has a beneficial effect on sepsis influenced cellular tension. The technology presented here is promising for future high-throughput cellular tension analysis that will help identify pathological contractile tension responses of cells and prove further cell in-vitro models.
Subject(s)
Endothelial Cells/drug effects , Endothelial Cells/physiology , Endothelium, Vascular/cytology , Endothelium, Vascular/drug effects , Permeability/drug effects , Protein C/pharmacology , Actins/metabolism , Aorta/cytology , Cells, Cultured , Down-Regulation/drug effects , Endothelium, Vascular/physiology , Humans , Interleukin-6/metabolism , Lipopolysaccharides/antagonists & inhibitors , Lipopolysaccharides/pharmacology , Protein C/therapeutic use , Reactive Oxygen Species/metabolism , Recombinant Proteins/pharmacology , Recombinant Proteins/therapeutic use , Sepsis/drug therapy , Sepsis/metabolism , Stress Fibers/drug effects , Stress Fibers/metabolism , Thrombin/pharmacology , rhoA GTP-Binding Protein/geneticsABSTRACT
Human red blood cells (RBCs) exhibit sudden changes in their biophysical properties at body temperature (T (B)). RBCs were seen to undergo a spontaneous transition from blockage to passage at T (C) = 36.4 +/- 0.3 degrees C, when the temperature dependency of RBC-passages through 1.3 mum narrow micropipettes was observed. Moreover, concentrated hemoglobin solutions (45 g/dl) showed a viscosity breakdown between 36 and 37 degrees C. With human hemoglobin, a structural transition was observed at T (B) as circular dichroism (CD) experiments revealed. This leads to the assumption that a species' body temperature occupies a unique position on the temperature scale and may even be imprinted in the structure of certain proteins. In this study, it was investigated whether hemoglobins of species with a T (B) different from those of human show temperature transitions and whether those were also linked to the species' T (B). The main conclusion was drawn from dynamic light scattering (DLS) and CD experiments. It was observed that such structural temperature transitions did occur in hemoglobins from all studied species and were correlated linearly (slope 0.81, r = 0.95) with the species' body temperature. We presumed that alpha-helices of hemoglobin were able to unfold more readily around T (B). alpha-helical unfolding would initiate molecular aggregation causing RBC passage and viscosity breakdown as mentioned above. Thus, structural molecular changes of hemoglobin could determine biophysical effects visible on a macroscopic scale. It is hypothesized that the species' body temperature was imprinted into the structure of hemoglobins.
