Digital gene expression analysis of transcriptomes in lipopolysaccharide-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome.

BACKGROUND: The mortality from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is high, and its exact pathogenesis remains unclear, which forms a major obstacle for prevention and treatment of this disease. In the present study, we used digital gene expression (DGE) to detect the differentially expressed genes of the lung at 4h after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure in a mouse model. METHODS: Mice were treated with LPS or control saline by intratracheal instillation for 4h, and their lung tissues were collected for DGE analysis. We used a false discovery rate ≤0.001 and an absolute value of the log2 ratio≥1 as the thresholds for judging the significance of any difference in gene expression between the two members of each pair of mice. RESULTS: We obtained 3,387,842 clean tags (i.e., after filtering to remove potentially erroneous tags) and about 84,513 corresponding distinct clean tags (i.e., types of tag). Approximately 91.20% of the clean tags could be mapped, and 82.71% could be uniquely mapped, to the reference tags, and 3.82% were unknown tags. At least 2200 differentially expressed genes were identified and analyzed for enrichment of Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway. Twenty genes with the greatest difference in expression levels between the two members of every pair of mice were chosen. The majority of these genes are involved in signaling transduction, molecular adhesion, and metabolic pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Using the powerful technology of DGE, we present, to our knowledge, the first in-depth transcriptomic analysis of mouse lungs after LPS exposure. We found some differentially expressed genes that might play important roles in the pathogenesis of ARDS.

Role of Angptl4 in vascular permeability and inflammation.

BACKGROUND: Angptl4 is a secreted protein involved in the regulation of vascular permeability, angiogenesis, and inflammatory responses in different kinds of tissues. Increases of vascular permeability and abnormality changes in angiogenesis contribute to the pathogenesis of tumor metastasis, ischemic-reperfusion injury. Inflammatory response associated with Angptl4 also leads to minimal change glomerulonephritis, wound healing. However, the role of Angptl4 in vascular permeability, angiogenesis, and inflammation is controversy. Hence, an underlying mechanism of Angptl4 in different kind of tissues needs to be further clarified. METHODS: Keywords such as angptl4, vascular permeability, angiogenesis, inflammation, and endothelial cells were used in search tool of PUBMED, and then the literatures associated with Angptl4 were founded and read. RESULTS: Data have established Angptl4 as the key modulator of both vascular permeability and angiogenesis; furthermore, it may also be related to the progression of metastatic tumors, cardiovascular events, and inflammatory diseases. This view focuses on the recent advances in our understanding of the role of Angptl4 in vascular permeability, angiogenesis, inflammatory signaling and the link between Angptl4 and multiple diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetic retinopathy, and kidney diseases. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, Angptl4 modulates vascular permeability, angiogenesis, inflammatory signaling, and associated diseases. The use of Angptl4-modulating agents such as certain drugs, food constituents (such as fatty acids), nuclear factor (such as PPARα), and bacteria may treat associated diseases such as tumor metastasis, ischemic-reperfusion injury, inflammation, and chronic low-grade inflammation. However, the diverse physiological functions of Angptl4 in different tissues can lead to potentially deleterious side effects when used as a therapeutic target. In this regard, a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms for Angptl4 in different tissues is necessary.

Over-expression of caveolin-1 aggravate LPS-induced inflammatory response in AT-1 cells via up-regulation of cPLA2/p38 MAPK.

OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN: The aim of this study was to study the effect of caveolin-1 on the cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2), p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (p38 MAPK) and nuclear factor kappaB (NF-kappaB) in mouse lung alveolar type-1 cells' (AT-1 cells) inflammatory response induced by LPS. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Gene clone technique was used to over-express caveolin-1 in AT-1 cells by lentivirus vector. The level of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha), interleukin 6 (IL-6), cPLA2, p38 MAPK and NF-kappaB was measured by ELISA, western blotting and EMSA. TREATMENT: AT-1 cells were treated with LPS. RESULTS: Over-expression of caveolin-1 not only increased the production of pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-alpha and IL-6, but also enhanced the expression of the cPLA2, p38 MAPK, and NF-kappaB. CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrated that over-expression of caveolin-1 aggravates the AT-1 injury induced by LPS, involving in modulation of the cPLA2 mediated by the cPLA2/p38 MAPK pathway.