Transcriptional profiles in the chicken ductus arteriosus during hatching

PLoS One. 2019 Mar 21;14(3):e0214139. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214139. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

The ductus arteriosus, an essential embryonic blood vessel between the pulmonary artery and the descending aorta, constricts after birth or hatching and eventually closes to terminate embryonic circulation. Chicken embryos have two long ductus arteriosi, which anatomically differ from mammal ductus arteriosus. Each long ductus arteriosus is divided into two parts: the pulmonary artery-sided and descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosi. Although the pulmonary artery-sided and descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosi have distinct functional characteristics, such as oxygen responsiveness, the difference in their transcriptional profiles has not been investigated. We performed a DNA microarray analysis (GSE 120116 at NCBI GEO) with pooled tissues from the chicken pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus, descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosus, and aorta at the internal pipping stage. Although several known ductus arteriosus-dominant genes such as tfap2b were highly expressed in the pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus, we newly found genes that were dominantly expressed in the chicken pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus. Interestingly, cluster analysis showed that the expression pattern of the pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus was closer to that of the descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosus than that of the aorta, whereas the morphology of the descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosus was closer to that of the aorta than that of the pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus. Subsequent pathway analysis with DAVID bioinformatics resources revealed that the pulmonary artery-sided ductus arteriosus showed enhanced expression of the genes involved in melanogenesis and tyrosine metabolism compared with the descending aorta-sided ductus arteriosus, suggesting that tyrosinase and the related genes play an important role in the proper differentiation of neural crest-derived cells during vascular remodeling in the ductus arteriosus. In conclusion, the transcription profiles of the chicken ductus arteriosus provide new insights for investigating the mechanism of ductus arteriosus closure.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Chick Embryo / embryology
  • Chick Embryo / metabolism*
  • Chick Embryo / ultrastructure
  • Chickens / genetics*
  • Ductus Arteriosus / embryology
  • Ductus Arteriosus / metabolism*
  • Ductus Arteriosus / ultrastructure
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental
  • Gene Ontology
  • Transcriptome*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan [16K15537 T.A., 17H01529 S.M., 26293249 S.M.], the MEXT-Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities [S.M.], the Vehicle Racing Commemorative Foundation [716 S.M.], The Jikei University Graduate Research Fund [S.M.], and the Miyata Cardiology Research Promotion Foundation [S.M.].