Fluid Shear Stress Up-regulates Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Gene. Mus musculus

Fluid induced shear stress is widely recognized as an important biophysical signal in cell-cell mechanotransduction. To identify cellular signaling pathways that are regulated by fluid shear stress, we applied the unbiased approach of transcriptional profiling. Our cDNA array analysis detected that 1165 of the 6288 sampled unigenes were significantly affected by pulsatile fluid flow. GenMapp 2.1 analysis revealed pathways of genes regulated by shear stress: angiogenesis, blood vessel morphogenesis, regulation of endothelial cell proliferation and prostaglandin biosynthesis. Individual genes significantly up-/down-regulated by shear stress included vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFa), cysteine rich protein 61 (CRY61), platelet derived growth factor, alpha (PDGFa), connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), Neuropilin 1 (NRP1), angiotensin II receptor, type 1a (AGTR1a) and fibroblast growth factor 1 (FGF1). Based on these findings, we hypothesize that fluid shear stress regulated VEGF most likely stimulates MC3T3-E1 cells through autocrine/paracrine release and may provide a powerful recruitment signal for osteoclasts, endothelial cells and/or stem cells during bone remodeling. Keywords: stress response Overall design: Study the transcriptomic effects of the shear stress on cultured osteoblast-like MC3T3 cells. We used six sets of controls (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6) and shear stressed samples (S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, S6) to ensure statistical relevance of the study, co-hybridized with six microarrays in the “multiple yellow” design described in Iacobas DA, Fan C, Iacobas S et al., Transcriptomic changes in developing kidney exposed to chronic hypoxia. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2006 349(1):329-38.