Lipopolysaccharide induces cellular hypertrophy through calcineurin/NFAT-3 signaling pathway in H9c2 myocardiac cells

[[abstract]]Evidences suggest that lipopolysaccharide (LPS) participates in the inflammatory response in the cardiovascular system; however, it is unknown if LPS is sufficient to cause the cardiac hypertrophy. In the present study, we treated H9c2 myocardiac cells with LPS to explore whether LPS causes cardiac hypertrophy, and to identify the precise molecular and cellular mechanisms behind hypertrophic responses. Here we show that LPS challenge induces pathological hypertrophic responses such as the increase in cell size, the reorganization of actin filaments, and the upregulation of hypertrophy markers including atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) in H9c2 cells. LPS treatment significantly promotes the activation of GATA-4 and the nuclear translocation of NFAT-3, which act as transcription factors mediating the development of cardiac hypertrophy. After administration of inhibitors including U0126 (ERK1/2 inhibitor), SB203580 (p38 MAPK inhibitor), SP600125 (JNK1/2 inhibitor), CsA (calcineurin inhibitor), FK506 (calcineurin inhibitor), and QNZ (NF kappa B inhibitor), LPS-induced hypertrophic characteristic features, such as increases in cell size, actin fibers, and levels of ANP and BNP, and the nuclear localization of NFAT-3 are markedly inhibited only by calcineurin inhibitors, CsA and FK506. Collectively, these results suggest that LPS leads to myocardiac hypertrophy through calcineurin/NFAT-3 signaling pathway in H9c2 cells. Our findings further provide a link between the LPS-induced inflammatory response and the calcineurin/NFAT-3 signaling pathway that mediates the development of cardiac hypertrophy

Akt mediates 17 beta-estradiol and/or estrogen receptor-alpha inhibition of LPS-induced tumor necresis factor-alpha expression and myocardial cell apoptosis by suppressing the JNK1/2-NF kappa B pathway

[[abstract]]Evidence shows that women have lower tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) levels and lower incidences of heart dysfunction and sepsis-related morbidity and mortality. To identify the cardioprotective effects and precise cellular/molecular mechanisms behind estrogen and estrogen receptors (ERs), we investigated the effects of 17 beta-estradiol (E-2) and estrogen receptor alpha (ER alpha) on LPS-induced apoptosis by analyzing the activation of survival and death signalling pathways in doxycycline (Dox)-inducible Tet-On/ER alpha H9c2 myocardial cells and ER alpha-transfected primary cardiomyocytes overexpressing ER alpha. We found that LPS challenge activated JNK1/2, and then induced I kappa B degradation, NF kappa B activation, TNF-alpha up-regulation and subsequent myocardial apoptotic responses. In addition, treatments involving E-2, membrane-impermeable BSA-E-2 and/or Dox, which induces ER alpha overexpression, significantly inhibited LPS-induced apoptosis by suppressing LPS-up-regulated JNK1/2 activity, I kappa B degradation, NF kappa B activation and pro-apoptotic proteins (e.g. TNF-alpha, active caspases-8, t-Bid, Bax, released cytochrome c, active caspase-9, active caspase-3) in myocardial cells. However, the cardioprotective properties of E-2, BSA-E-2 and ER alpha overexpression to inhibit LPS-induced apoptosis and promote cell survival were attenuated by applying LY294002 (PI3K inhibitor) and PI3K siRNA. These findings suggest that E-2, BSA-E-2 and ER alpha expression exert their cardioprotective effects by inhibiting JNK1/2-mediated LPS-induced TNF-alpha expression and cardiomyocyte apoptosis through activation of Akt

Comparison of the protein acetylome of endothelial cells upon shear flow and resveratrol treatment

Background: Posttranslational acetylation/deacetylation known as the acetylome is important in regulating protein activity. Shear flow (SF) and resveratrol (RSV) are two stimuli that represent physical and chemical signal separately. The acetylome co-regulated by these two stimuli remain unclear. Methods: Human umbilical cord vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were subjected to either SF of 12 dynes/cm2 or 10 μM RSV. The purified acetylated peptides were labeled by isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ) analysis. The signaling cascades of the identified acetylome were predicted by ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA). Co-immunoprecipitation was applied to confirm the acetylation status of proteins. Results: Five groups of proteins showed an increased acetylation upon SF and RSV treatment. After algorithm, 628 proteins with increased acetylation and 22 proteins with decreased acetylation were identified in the SF acetylome. For the acetylome regulated by RSV, 145 proteins with increased acetylation and 23 proteins with decreased acetylation were identified. Compared these two acetylomes, 129 proteins with increased acetylation and 2 proteins with decreased acetylation were co-regulated by both SF and RSV treatments. IPA analysis showed that this co-regulated acetylome was involved in heat shock response, and the signals of eNOS, STAT3, JAK/STAT and ERK/MAPK. Co-immunoprecipitation analysis further confirmed the acetylated status of mitochondrial HSP60 and mitochondrial citrate synthase. Conclusions: This study indicated that physical signal is more complicated than chemical signal in the case of acetylome. The co-regulated proteins are worthy for further study in discussing synergetic effect between physical and chemical signal in cardioprotection

Comparison of the Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome Between the Criteria for Taiwanese and Japanese and the Projected Probability of Stroke in Elderly Hypertensive Taiwanese

SummaryBackgroundThe cutoff of abdominal circumference for metabolic syndrome (MS) defined by the Bureau of Health Promotion (BHP) of Taiwan for Taiwanese (men, 90cm; women, 80cm) and by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for Japanese (men, 85cm; women, 90cm) differs. This study aimed to examine the impact of this difference on the prevalence of MS and the impact of an MS diagnosis on the projected risk of stroke in hypertensive Taiwanese.MethodsMS was examined in a sample of 3,472 hypertensive patients (aged 55–80 years; 1,709 women) across Taiwan. The 10-year probability of stroke estimated from the Framingham equation was compared between MS and non-MS patients.ResultsThe prevalence of MS using the BHP criteria was 59.2% using the BHP criteria (95% confidence interval, CI, 57.6–60.8%; men, 52.5%; women, 66.1%) and 48.9% by the IDF criteria (95% CI, 47.2–50.5%; men, 61.3%; women, 36.1%). Both criteria showed that, compared with non-MS, MS has higher predicted 10-year probability of stroke (BHP, 0.153 ± 0.115 vs. 0.133 ± 0.105; IDF, 0.159 ± 0.109 vs. 0.132 ± 0.112; both p < 0.001) because of the difference in women (BHP, 0.143 ± 0.124 vs. 0.102 ± 0.091; IDF, 0.147 ± 0.121 vs. 0.118 ± 0.110; both p < 0.001) rather than men (BHP, p = 0.21; IDF, p = 0.29).ConclusionBoth criteria demonstrate that MS is highly prevalent in elderly hypertensive patients in Taiwan. Additionally in women, but not men, the predicted probability of stroke is higher in MS than in non-MS patients. The diagnosis of MS is potentially useful for identifying elderly hypertensive females with an elevated risk of stroke in Taiwan

TRAO Survey of Nearby Filamentary Molecular clouds, the Universal Nursery of Stars (TRAO FUNS) I. Dynamics and Chemistry of L1478 in the California Molecular Cloud

"TRAO FUNS" is a project to survey Gould Belt's clouds in molecular lines. This paper presents its first results on the central region of the California molecular cloud, L1478. We performed On-The-Fly mapping observations using the Taedeok Radio Astronomy Observatory (TRAO) 14m single dish telescope equipped with a 16 multi-beam array covering $\sim$1.0 square degree area of this region using C$^{18}$O (1-0) mainly tracing low density cloud and about 460 square arcminute area using N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ (1-0) mainly tracing dense cores. CS (2-1) and SO $(3_{2}-2_{1})$ were also used simultaneously to map $\sim$440 square arcminute area of this region. We identified 10 filaments by applying the dendrogram technique to the C$^{18}$O data-cube and 8 dense N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ cores by using {\sc FellWalker}. Basic physical properties of filaments such as mass, length, width, velocity field, and velocity dispersion are derived. It is found that L1478 consists of several filaments with slightly different velocities. Especially the filaments which are supercritical are found to contain dense cores detected in N$_{2}$H$^{+}$. Comparison of non-thermal velocity dispersions derived from C$^{18}$O and N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ for the filaments and dense cores indicates that some of dense cores share similar kinematics with those of the surrounding filaments while several dense cores have different kinematics with those of their filaments. This suggests that the formation mechanism of dense cores and filaments can be different in individual filaments depending on their morphologies and environments.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Geobacter, Anaeromyxobacter and Anaerolineae populations are enriched on anodes of root exudate-driven microbial fuel cells in rice field soil

Plant-based sediment microbial fuel cells (PMFCs) couple the oxidation of root exudates in living rice plants to current production. We analysed the composition of the microbial community on anodes from PMFC with natural rice field soil as substratum for rice by analysing 16S rRNA as an indicator of microbial activity and diversity. Terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) analysis indicated that the active bacterial community on anodes from PMFCs differed strongly compared with controls. Moreover, clones related to Deltaproteobacteria and Chloroflexi were highly abundant (49% and 21%, respectively) on PMFCs anodes. Geobacter (19%), Anaeromyxobacter (15%) and Anaerolineae (17%) populations were predominant on anodes with natural rice field soil and differed strongly from those previously detected with potting soil. In open circuit (OC) control PMFCs, not allowing electron transfer, Deltaproteobacteria (33%), Betaproteobacteria (20%), Chloroflexi (12%), Alphaproteobacteria (10%) and Firmicutes (10%) were detected. The presence of an electron accepting anode also had a strong influence on methanogenic archaea. Hydrogenotrophic methanogens were more active on PMFC (21%) than on OC controls (10%), whereas acetoclastic Methanosaetaceae were more active on OC controls (31%) compared with PMFCs (9%). In conclusion, electron accepting anodes and rice root exudates selected for distinct potential anode-reducing microbial populations in rice soil inoculated PMFC

Square Key Matrix Management Scheme in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper we propose a symmetric cryptographic approach named Square Key Matrix Management Scheme (SKMaS) in which a sensor node named Key Distribution Server (KDS) is responsible for the security of key management. When the system starts up, the KDS sends its individual key and two sets of keys to sensor nodes. With the IDs, any two valid sensor nodes, e.g. i and j, can individually identify the corresponding communication keys (CKs) to derive a dynamic shared key (DSK) for encrypting/decrypting messages transmitted between them. When i leaves the underlying network, the CKs and the individually keys currently utilized by i can be reused by a newly joining sensor, e.g. h. However, when h joins the network, if no such previously-used IDs are available, h will be given a new ID, CKs and the individually key by the KDS. The KDS encrypts the CKs, with which an existing node q can communicate with h, with individual key so that only q rather than h can correctly decrypt the CKs. The lemmas and security analyses provided in this paper prove that the proposed system can protect at least three common attacks