Effects of epinephrine on angiogenesis-related gene expressions in cultured rat cardiomyocytes

Epinephrine is often used for the treatment of patients with heart failure, low cardiac output and cardiac arrest. It can acutely improve hemodynamic parameters; however, it does not seem to improve longer term clinical outcomes. Therefore, we hypothesized that epinephrine may induce unfavorable changes in gene expression of cardiomyocyte. Thus, we investigated effects of epinephrine exposure on the mediation or modulation of gene expression of cultured cardiomyocytes at a genome-wide scale. Our investigation revealed that exposure of cardiomyocytes to epinephrine in an in vitro environment can up-regulate the expression ofangiopoietin-2 gene （~ 2.1 times）, and down-regulate the gene expression of neuregulin 1 （-3.7 times）, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 （-2.4 times） and SPARC-related modular calcium-binding protein-2 （-4.5 times）. These changes suggest that epinephrine exposure may induce inhibition of angiogenesis-related gene expressions in cultured rat cardiomyocytes. The precise clinical significance of these changes in gene expression, which was induced by epinephrine exposure, warrants further experimental and clinical investigations.

Comprehensive functional annotation of susceptibility variants identifies genetic heterogeneity between lung adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma

Although genome-wide association studies have identified more than eighty genetic variants associated with non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC)risk,biological mechanisms of these variants remain largely unknown.By integrating a large-scale genotype data of 15581 lung adenocarcinoma(AD)cases,8350 squamous cell carcinoma(SqCC)cases,and 27355 controls,as well as multiple transcriptome and epigenomic databases,we conducted histology-specific meta-analyses and functional annotations of both reported and novel susceptibility variants.We identified 3064 credible risk variants for NSCLC,which were overrepresented in enhancer-like and promoter-like histone modification peaks as well as DNase I hypersensitive sites.Transcription factor enrichment analysis revealed that USF1 was AD-specific while CREB1 was SqCC-specific.Functional annotation and genebased analysis implicated 894 target genes,including 274 specifics for AD and 123 for SqCC,which were overrepresented in somatic driver genes(ER=1.95,P=0.005).Pathway enrichment analysis and Gene-Set Enrichment Analysis revealed that AD genes were primarily involved in immune-related pathways,while SqCC genes were homologous recombination deficiency related.Our results illustrate the molecular basis of both wellstudied and new susceptibility loci of NSCLC,providing not only novel insights into the genetic heterogeneity between AD and SqCC but also a set of plausible gene targets for post-GWAS functional experiments.