Effects of intermittent and chronic hypoxia on HAEC

Intermittent hypoxia (IH) in HeLa cell culture activates proinflammatory transcription factor NFκB, whereas chronic hypoxia (CH) does not. In order to determine whether IH may be linked to vascular inflammation, we developed a novel IH cell culture system and exposed HAEC (human aortic endothelial cells) to IH or CH. Keywords: Human Artery Endothelial Cells (HAEC) HAEC were gassed with: 1) 16% O2, 5%CO2, balanced N2 (control); 2) 4%O2, 5%CO2, balanced N2 (continuous hypoxia) or 3) 5 minutes of 16% O2, 5%CO2, balanced N2 alternating with 5 minutes of 0% O2, 5%CO2, balanced N2 (intermittent hypoxia). After 8 hours cells were quickly harvested for RNA extraction by the Trizol methods with subsequent RNEasy clean up. Gene microarrays were performed using Illumina’s Sentrix HumanRef-8 Expression BeadChips (Illumina, San Diego, CA) n=4 for each condition.