scholarly journals Comprehensive bioinformatic analysis identified m6A methylation as an important regulator in mediating immune response during idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na Liu ◽  
Yunhong Zeng ◽  
Ting Huang ◽  
Wanyun Zuo ◽  
Yunbin Xiao ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundDespite its functional importance in various fundamental bioprocesses, studies of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) in the pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) are lacking. Here we studied the potential relevance of m6A RNA methylation and immune response in PAH development.MethodsWe constructed a monocrotaline (MCT) induced PAH rat model and performed Methylated RNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (MeRIP-Seq). The 18 idiopathic PAH (IPAH) microarray data obtained from the GEO database was used to construct co-expression networks by weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA). CIBERSORT was used to investigate the effect of m6A methylation on immune cell infiltration during PAH.ResultsA differential pattern of m6A abundance, mainly up-methylation, was observed in the lung tissues of rats with MCT induced PAH. By WGCNA, multi-list pathway enrichment analysis and protein-protein interaction (PPI) analysis, we found that m6A methylation modification may play important roles in mediating immune response during PAH. CYBERSORT algorithm indicated that the m6A methylation can drive monocyte to form M1 macrophage, which may be mediated by CCR5 and CXCL9.ConclusionCollectively, m6A landscape is altered in PAH. We summarize newly discovered m6A in controlling immune response, which caused activation of M1 macrophage during PAH. It’s provided a novel insight into the therapeutic mechanisms of PAH.

Author(s):  
Peiliang Wu ◽  
Xiaona Xie ◽  
Mayun Chen ◽  
Junwei Sun ◽  
Luqiong Cai ◽  
...  

Background and Objective: Qishen Yiqi formula (QSYQ) is used to treat cardiovascular disease in the clinical practice of traditional Chinese medicine. However, few studies have explored whether QSYQ affects pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and the mechanisms of action and molecular targets of QSYQ for the treatment of PAH are unclear. A bioinformatics/network topology-based strategy was used to identify the bioactive ingredients, putative targets, and molecular mechanisms of QSYQ in PAH. Methods: A network pharmacology-based strategy was employed by integrating active component gathering, target prediction, PAH gene collection, network topology, and gene enrichment analysis to systematically explore the multicomponent synergistic mechanisms. Results: In total, 107 bioactive ingredients of QSYQ and 228 ingredient targets were identified. Moreover, 234 PAH-related differentially expressed genes with a |fold change| >2 and an adjusted P value < 0.005 were identified between the PAH patient and control groups, and 266 therapeutic targets were identified. The pathway enrichment analysis indicated that 85 pathways, including the PI3K-Akt, MAPK, and HIF-1 signaling pathways, were significantly enriched. TP53 was the core target gene, and 7 other top genes (MAPK1, RELA, NFKB1, CDKN1A, AKT1, MYC, and MDM2) were the key genes in the gene-pathway network based on the effects of QSYQ on PAH. Conclusion: An integrative investigation based on network pharmacology may elucidate the multicomponent synergistic mechanisms of QSYQ in PAH and lay a foundation for further animal experiments, human clinical trials and rational clinical applications of QSYQ.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Chan Li ◽  
Zeyu Zhang ◽  
Qian Xu ◽  
Ruizheng Shi

Introduction. Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) is a severe cardiopulmonary disease with a relatively low survival rate. Moreover, the pathogenesis of IPAH has not been fully recognized. Thus, comprehensive analyses of miRNA-mRNA network and potential drugs in IPAH are urgent requirements. Methods. Microarray datasets of mRNA and microRNA (miRNA) in IPAH were searched and downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially expressed miRNAs (DEMIs) were identified. Then, the DEMI-DEG network was conducted with associated comprehensive analyses including Gene Ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis, while potential drugs targeting hub genes were investigated using L1000 platform. Results. 30 DEGs and 6 DEMIs were identified in the lung tissue of IPAH. GO and KEGG pathway analyses revealed that these DEGs were mostly enriched in antimicrobial humoral response and African trypanosomiasis, respectively. The DEMI-DEG network was conducted subsequently with 4 DEMIs (hsa-miR-34b-5p, hsa-miR-26b-5p, hsa-miR-205-5p, and hsa-miR-199a-3p) and 16 DEGs, among which 5 DEGs (AQP9, SPP1, END1, VCAM1, and SAA1) were included in the top 10 hub genes of the PPI network. Nimodipine was identified with the highest CMap connectivity score in L1000 platform. Conclusion. Our study conducted a miRNA-mRNA network and identified 4 miRNAs as well as 5 mRNAs which may play important roles in the pathogenesis of IPAH. Moreover, we provided a new insight for future therapies by predicting potential drugs targeting hub genes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Pienkos ◽  
Natalia Gallego ◽  
David F. Condon ◽  
Alejandro Cruz-Utrilla ◽  
Nuria Ochoa ◽  
...  

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare disease characterized by pulmonary vascular remodeling and right heart failure. Specific genetic variants increase the incidence of PAH in carriers with a family history of PAH, those who suffer from certain medical conditions, and even those with no apparent risk factors. Inflammation and immune dysregulation are related to vascular remodeling in PAH, but whether genetic susceptibility modifies the PAH immune response is unclear. TNIP2 and TRAF2 encode for immunomodulatory proteins that regulate NF-κB activation, a transcription factor complex associated with inflammation and vascular remodeling in PAH.Methods: Two unrelated families with PAH cases underwent whole-exome sequencing (WES). A custom pipeline for variant prioritization was carried out to obtain candidate variants. To determine the impact of TNIP2 and TRAF2 in cell proliferation, we performed an MTS [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl)-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium] assay on healthy lung pericytes transfected with siRNA specific for each gene. To measure the effect of loss of TNIP2 and TRAF2 on NF-kappa-beta (NF-κB) activity, we measured levels of Phospho-p65-NF-κB in siRNA-transfected pericytes using western immunoblotting.Results: We discovered a novel missense variant in the TNIP2 gene in two affected individuals from the same family. The two patients had a complex form of PAH with interatrial communication and scleroderma. In the second family, WES of the proband with PAH and primary biliary cirrhosis revealed a de novo protein-truncating variant in the TRAF2. The knockdown of TNIP2 and TRAF2 increased NF-κB activity in healthy lung pericytes, which correlated with a significant increase in proliferation over 24 h.Conclusions: We have identified two rare novel variants in TNIP2 and TRAF2 using WES. We speculate that loss of function in these genes promotes pulmonary vascular remodeling by allowing overactivation of the NF-κB signaling activity. Our findings support a role for WES in helping identify novel genetic variants associated with dysfunctional immune response in PAH.


Genes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 1247
Author(s):  
Anna Ulrich ◽  
Pablo Otero-Núñez ◽  
John Wharton ◽  
Emilia M. Swietlik ◽  
Stefan Gräf ◽  
...  

Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) can provide a link between disease susceptibility variants discovered by genetic association studies and biology. To date, eQTL mapping studies have been primarily conducted in healthy individuals from population-based cohorts. Genetic effects have been known to be context-specific and vary with changing environmental stimuli. We conducted a transcriptome- and genome-wide eQTL mapping study in a cohort of patients with idiopathic or heritable pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) using RNA sequencing (RNAseq) data from whole blood. We sought confirmation from three published population-based eQTL studies, including the GTEx Project, and followed up potentially novel eQTL not observed in the general population. In total, we identified 2314 eQTL of which 90% were cis-acting and 75% were confirmed by at least one of the published studies. While we observed a higher GWAS trait colocalization rate among confirmed eQTL, colocalisation rate of novel eQTL reported for lung-related phenotypes was twice as high as that of confirmed eQTL. Functional enrichment analysis of genes with novel eQTL in PAH highlighted immune-related processes, a suspected contributor to PAH. These potentially novel eQTL specific to or active in PAH could be useful in understanding genetic risk factors for other diseases that share common mechanisms with PAH.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Yu Zeng ◽  
Nanhong Li ◽  
Zhenzhen Zheng ◽  
Riken Chen ◽  
Min Peng ◽  
...  

Background. Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a disease or pathophysiological syndrome which has a low survival rate with abnormally elevated pulmonary artery pressure caused by known or unknown reasons. In addition, the pathogenesis of PAH is not fully understood. Therefore, it has become an urgent matter to search for clinical molecular markers of PAH, study the pathogenesis of PAH, and contribute to the development of new science-based PAH diagnosis and targeted treatment methods. Methods. In this study, the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database was used to downloaded a microarray dataset about PAH, and the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between PAH and normal control were screened out. Moreover, we performed the functional enrichment analyses and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analyses of the DEGs. In addition, the prediction of miRNA and transcriptional factor (TF) of hub genes and construction miRNA-TF-hub gene network were performed. Besides, the ROC curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of hub genes. Finally, the potential drug targets for the 5 identified hub genes were screened out. Results. 69 DEGs were identified between PAH samples and normal samples. GO and KEGG pathway analyses revealed that these DEGs were mostly enriched in the inflammatory response and cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, respectively. The miRNA-hub genes network was conducted subsequently with 131 miRNAs, 7 TFs, and 5 hub genes (CCL5, CXCL12, VCAM1, CXCR1, and SPP1) which screened out via constructing the PPI network. 17 drugs interacted with 5 hub genes were identified. Conclusions. Through bioinformatic analysis of microarray data sets, 5 hub genes (CCL5, CXCL12, VCAM1, CXCR1, and SPP1) were identified from DEGs between control samples and PAH samples. Studies showed that the five hub genes might play an important role in the development of PAH. These 5 hub genes might be potential biomarkers for diagnosis or targets for the treatment of PAH. In addition, our work also indicated that paying more attention on studies based on these 5 hub genes might help to understand the molecular mechanism of the development of PAH.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting Shu ◽  
Yanjiang Xing ◽  
Jing Wang

Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive life-threatening disease. The notion that autoimmunity is associated with PAH is widely recognized by the observations that patients with connective tissue diseases or virus infections are more susceptible to PAH. However, growing evidence supports that the patients with idiopathic PAH (IPAH) with no autoimmune diseases also have auto-antibodies. Anti-inflammatory therapy shows less help in decreasing auto-antibodies, therefore, elucidating the process of immunoglobulin production is in great need. Maladaptive immune response in lung tissues is considered implicating in the local auto-antibodies production in patients with IPAH. In this review, we will discuss the specific cell types involved in the lung in situ immune response, the potential auto-antigens, and the contribution of local immunoglobulin production in PAH development, providing a theoretical basis for drug development and precise treatment in patients with PAH.


2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (8) ◽  
pp. 865-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Ross ◽  
Robert M. Strieter ◽  
Michael C. Fishbein ◽  
Abbas Ardehali ◽  
John A. Belperio

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