Transcriptome analysis of human pulmonary endothelial cells exposed to laminar shear stress

Laminar shear stress generated by blood flow stimulates endothelial cells and activates signal transduction, which plays an important role in vascular homeostasis. Several lines of evidence indicate that membrane and intracellular lipids are involved in the signal transduction of biomechanical stresses. In this study, we performed global profiling of cellular lipids from human pulmonary artery endothelial cells (HPAEC) exposed to laminar shear stress. Ether-linked lipids containing an alkyl moiety with a middle chain length (C10–C14) were uniquely upregulated, and the administration of their biosynthetic precursor 1-O-dodecyl-rac-glycerol attenuated phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) induced vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) expression. Simultaneously, we performed 3 experiments of RNA sequencing.Overall design of experiment 1: Gene expression profiles of HPAEC untreated (static) and exposed to shear stress for 6 or 24 h were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate.Overall design of experiment 2: Gene expression profiles of HPAEC untreated (static) and stimulated by PMA with or without laminar shear stress were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate.Overall design of experiment 3: Gene expression profiles of HPAEC untreated (control) and stimulated by PMA with or without treatment of 12AG were generated by deep sequencing, in triplicate.