Genomic landscape of endothelial cell-glucocorticoid receptor interactions: Regulation of the Wnt signaling pathway [ChIP-seq]

Vascular inflammation is present in many cardiovascular diseases and exogenous glucocorticoids have traditionally been used as a therapy to suppress inflammation. However, recent data has shown that endogenous glucocorticoids, acting through the endothelial glucocorticoid receptor, act as negative regulators of inflammation. Here we performed chromatin immunoprecipitation for the glucocorticoid receptor followed by next-gen sequencing in mouse endothelial cells to investigate how the endothelial glucocorticoid receptor regulates vascular inflammation. We identified a novel role of the Wnt signaling pathway in this setting and show that loss of the endothelial glucocorticoid receptor results in up regulation of Wnt signaling both in vitro and in vivo using our validated mouse model. Further we demonstrate glucocorticoid receptor regulation of a key gene in the Wnt pathway via a novel glucocorticoid response element gleaned from our genomic data. These results suggest a novel role for endothelial Wnt signaling modulation in states of vascular inflammation. Overall design: Examination of ChIP-seq in endothelial cells with and without the glucorticoid receptor, either unstimulated or treated with dexamethasone (4 conditions) with appropriate IgG and whole cell input controls