Airway smooth muscle reponse to dexamathasone at 4 and 24 hours

Glucocorticoids, which activate glucocorticoid receptor signaling and thus modulate gene expression, are widely used to treat asthma. Glucocorticoids exert their therapeutic effects in part through modulating airway smooth muscle structure and function. However, the effects of genes that are regulated by GCs on airway function are not fully understood. Here, we used transcription profiling to characterize the effects of a potent glucocorticoid, dexamethasone, on cultured human airway smooth muscle gene expression at 4 and 24 hours. This study examined differential gene expression induced by treatment of cultured human airway smooth muscle cells with dexamethasone. There were 3 groups of samples and each group had 4 biological replicates. Group 1 was no treatment, Group 2 was dexamethasone (dex) treatment for 4 hours, Group 3 was dex treatment for 24 hours. Cultures were synchronized so harvest occurred at the same time for all three groups. 2 samples are not included in this analysis (based on unsupervised clustering of samples and diagnostic plots).