Journal: American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology
Article Title: COL8A1 Regulates Endothelial Phenotype in Inflammatory Endothelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition
doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00339.2025
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) Matrigel-based tube formation assays of HAECs transfected with control (siCtrl) or COL8A1 siRNA (siCOL8A1), with or without TNF-α treatment for 4 days (scale bar, 200 μm). (B) Quantification of total tube length and number of nodes in each group (n = 5). Data are mean ± SEM, statistical analysis by one-way ANOVA. (C-E) Bulk RNA-seq datasets of control or COL8A1 downregulated HAECs, both of which treated with control siRNA or COL8A1 siRNA for 24 hours. (C) Gene Ontology (GO)-Molecular Function (MF) analysis showing the pathway enrichments. (D) Volcano plot, showing differentially expressed genes (defined as fold-change>2, p value<0.05) upon COL8A1 knockdown (siCOL8A1 vs. siCtrl). The annotated genes are COL8A1, and key genes related to endothelial function. (E) Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), demonstrating Epithelial to Mesenchymal transition as positive enriched pathway related to COL8A1 knockdown and the differentially expressed genes contributing to the pathway. (F) Western blot analysis of COL8A1, PECAM1, eNOS3, TAGLN, Snail, and GAPDH (loading control) in HAECs transfected with Control siRNA, COL8A1 siRNA, or treated with TNF-α for 60 hours. (G) Quantification of normalized protein expression levels for COL8A1 (15 kDa and 85 kDa), PECAM1, TAGLN, and Snail, relative to GAPDH (n = 3). Data are mean ± SEM. (H) HAECs transfected with siCtrl or siCOL8A1 were cultured on BSA- or rcol8a1-coated plates. RT-qPCR analysis of PECAM1, ENOS3, and CDH2 expression (n = 6). Data are mean ± SEM; statistical analysis by two-tailed Student’s t-test.
Article Snippet: Primary human aortic endothelial cells were purchased from (HAECs; Cell Applications, Cat# 211-500, Lot #2986), all experiments in this study were performed using cells from the same lot to avoid batch-to-batch variation.
Techniques: Transfection, Control, RNA Sequencing, Knockdown, Western Blot, Expressing, Cell Culture, Quantitative RT-PCR, Two Tailed Test