Lung selective gene responses to alveolar hypoxia

Pulmonary hypoxia is a common complication of chronic lung diseases leading to the development of pulmonary hypertension. The underlying sustained increase in vascular resistance in hypoxia is a response unique to the lung. Thus, we hypothesised that there are genes whose expression is altered selectively in the lung in response to alveolar hypoxia. Using a novel subtractive array strategy, we compared gene responses to hypoxia in primary human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells to those in cardiac microvascular endothelium and identified genes selectively differentially regulated in the lung endothelium. Keywords: Time course, cell type comparison Human microvascular endothelial lung (n=3) or cardiac (n=3) cells in normoxia (21% O2), or hypoxia (1% O2) for 3hrs, 24hrs or 48hrs.