Transcriptomic Differences Associated with TSC2 Gene Expression Loss in Lymphangioleiomyomatosis [human cells]

Pulmonary Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), a rare lung disease that affects predominantly women, is characterized by proliferation of smooth muscle-like cells in the lungs, destruction of lung tissue, upregulation of VEGF-D, and growth of lymphatic vessels inducing a loss of pulmonary function. TSC2 gene mutations that render TSC2 inactive are a common finding associated with LAM. To better understand the function of the TSC2 gene in LAM , we sought to characterize differences in the transcriptome of cells where TSC2 is inactivated. RNA-Seq was used to measure transcript expression differences between a human TSC2-null angiolipoma cell line derived from an individual with LAM, and the same cell line with re-expressed TSC2 to serve as a control. The Illumina TruSeq method was used to prepare poly(A)-selected stranded RNA-Seq libraries, and 100bp paired-end reads were generated with an Illumina Hi-Seq 2500 instrument in high output mode. RNA-Seq data was analyzed using kallisto (http://pachterlab.github.io/kallisto/) and R. Transcriptomic profiles obtained via RNA-Seq for human TSC2-null angiolipoma cell line derived from an individual with LAM; the same cell line with TSC2 re-expressed served as a control; cells were treated with Rapamycin, STAT3, or left untreated.