Effect of elevated glucose on gene expression during foam cell formation.

To investigate the intrinsic causes of the high prevalence of atherosclerosis in diabetic patients, we cultured macrophages differentiated from THP-1 in a high-glucose environment and oxidized low-density lipoprotein to induce its transformation into foam cells. We sought the effect of high glucose on gene expression during foam cell formation by transcriptome sequencing. Overall design: We used untreated macrophages as control, and the rest of the cells were cultured in a high or no glucose medium for induction using oxLDL, respectively. Each group contained two biological replicates. We extracted all genes of the three groups for expression profiling by high-throughput sequencing.