Comparison of STEEL siRNA-treated and control siRNA-treated human endothelial cells

To determine the role of STEEL in endothelial cell (EC) gene regulation, gene expression analysis was conducted on control and STEEL siRNA-treated human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HMVECs) and human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). A total of 225 protein-coding genes were downregulated and 80 were upregulated when both EC types were grouped for analysis. In HMVEC alone, 544 protein-coding genes were downregulated and 218 were upregulated. In HUVEC alone, 177 protein-coding genes were downregulated and 125 were upregulated. Prominently, STEEL siRNA depletion results in the downregulation of two notable protein-coding genes, eNOS and KLF2, which are modulated in ECs subjected to continuous laminar shear stress. HUVECs and HMVECs were treated with control siRNA or STEEL siRNA for 48 hours. Subsequently, these samples were subjected to gene expression analysis using a custom agilent microarray that recognizes 30215 protein-coding transcripts and 33045 lncRNAs.