Tera Lavoie

Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) activates transcription of genes encoding angiogenic growth factors, which are secreted by hypoxic cells and stimulate endothelial cells, leading to angiogenesis. To determine whether HIF-1 also mediates cell-autonomous responses to hypoxia, we have compared gene expression profiles in arterial endothelial cells cultured under nonhypoxic versus hypoxic conditions and in nonhypoxic cells infected with adenovirus encoding beta-galactosidase versus a constitutively active form of HIF-1alpha (AdCA5). There were 245 gene probes that showed at least 1.5-fold increase in expression in response to hypoxia and in response to AdCA5; 325 gene probes showed at least 1.5-fold decrease in expression in response to hypoxia and in response to AdCA5. The largest category of genes down-regulated by both hypoxia and AdCA5 encoded proteins involved in cell growth/proliferation. Many genes up-regulated by both hypoxia and AdCA5 encoded cytokines/growth factors, receptors, and other signaling proteins. Transcription factors accounted for the largest group of HIF-1-regulated genes, indicating that HIF-1 controls a network of transcriptional responses to hypoxia in endothelial cells. Infection of endothelial cells with AdCA5 under nonhypoxic conditions was sufficient to induce increased basement membrane invasion and tube formation similar to the responses induced by hypoxia, indicating that HIF-1 mediates cell-autonomous activation of endothelial cells.

RATIONALE: In the normal lung, breathing and deep inspirations potently antagonize bronchoconstriction, but in the asthmatic lung this salutary effect is substantially attenuated or even reversed. To explain these findings, the prevailing hypothesis focuses on contracting airway smooth muscle and posits a nonlinear dynamic interaction between actomyosin binding and the tethering forces imposed by tidally expanding lung parenchyma. OBJECTIVE: This hypothesis has never been tested directly in bronchial smooth muscle embedded within intraparenchymal airways. Our objective here is to fill that gap. METHODS: We designed a novel system to image contracting intraparenchymal human airways situated within near-normal lung architecture and subjected to dynamic parenchymal expansion that simulates breathing. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Reversal of bronchoconstriction depended on the degree to which breathing actually stretched the airway, which in turn depended negatively on severity of constriction and positively on the depth of breathing. Such behavior implies positive feedbacks that engender airway instability. OVERALL CONCLUSIONS: These findings help to explain heterogeneity of airflow obstruction as well as why, in people with asthma, deep inspirations are less effective in reversing bronchoconstriction.

Human acute lung injury is characterized by heterogeneous tissue involvement, leading to the potential for extremes of mechanical stress and tissue injury when mechanical ventilation, required to support critically ill patients, is employed. Our goal was to establish whether regional cellular responses to these disparate local mechanical conditions could be determined as a novel approach toward understanding the mechanism of development of ventilator-associated lung injury. We utilized cross-species genomic microarrays in a unilateral model of ventilator-associated lung injury in anesthetized dogs to assess regional cellular responses to local mechanical conditions that potentially contribute pathogenic mechanisms of injury. Highly significant regional differences in gene expression were observed between lung apex/base regions as well as between gravitationally dependent/nondependent regions of the base, with 367 and 1,544 genes differentially regulated between these regions, respectively. Major functional groupings of differentially regulated genes included inflammation and immune responses, cell proliferation, adhesion, signaling, and apoptosis. Expression of genes encoding both acute lung injury-associated inflammatory cytokines and protective acute response genes were markedly different in the nondependent compared with the dependent regions of the lung base. We conclude that there are significant differences in the local responses to stress within the lung, and consequently, insights into the cellular responses that contribute to ventilator-associated lung injury development must be sought in the context of the mechanical heterogeneity that characterizes this syndrome.