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Peripheral blood gene expression profiles in metabolic syndrome, coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes

Genes & Immunity volume 12, pages 341–351 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

To determine if individuals with metabolic disorders possess unique gene expression profiles, we compared transcript levels in peripheral blood from patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), type 2 diabetes (T2D) and their precursor state, metabolic syndrome to those of control (CTRL) subjects and subjects with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The gene expression profile of each metabolic state was distinguishable from CTRLs and correlated with other metabolic states more than with RA. Of note, subjects in the metabolic cohorts overexpressed gene sets that participate in the innate immune response. Genes involved in activation of the pro-inflammatory transcription factor, NF-κB, were overexpressed in CAD whereas genes differentially expressed in T2D have key roles in T-cell activation and signaling. Reverse transcriptase PCR validation confirmed microarray results. Furthermore, several genes differentially expressed in human metabolic disorders have been previously shown to participate in inflammatory responses in murine models of obesity and T2D. Taken together, these data demonstrate that peripheral blood from individuals with metabolic disorders display overlapping and non-overlapping patterns of gene expression indicative of unique, underlying immune processes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Drs James W Thomas, Howard Fuchs, Nancy J Brown and their patients for access to their clinics and providing blood samples. We would also like to acknowledge the Vanderbilt Functional Genomics Shared Resource for technical support with microarrays (Vicky Amann) and RT-PCR experiments (Latha Raju). This work was supported by NIH grants R42 AI053984, T32 GM07347, T32 DK07563 and TL1 RR024978.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA

    B L Grayson & T M Aune

  2. Department of Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA

    L Wang

  3. Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN, USA

    T M Aune

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  1. B L Grayson
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Correspondence to T M Aune.

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TMA is part owner of ArthroChip, LLC, whose focus is to develop diagnostic tests for autoimmune diseases using gene expression profiles in whole blood.

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Grayson, B., Wang, L. & Aune, T. Peripheral blood gene expression profiles in metabolic syndrome, coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes. Genes Immun 12, 341–351 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/gene.2011.13

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