Changes of MAPK and Akt signaling pathways in hearts and placentas of aborted fetuses with congenital heart disease
XU Jie, YANG Zhong-Zhou, ZHANG Shu, WU Shao-Gen, HU Ya-Li
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing 210008, China. Email:yali_hu@hotmail.com
Abstract：OBJECTIVE: To study the changes of MAPK and Akt signaling pathways in hearts and placentas of aborted fetuses with congenital heart disease (CHD), and investigate their roles in the pathogenesis of CHD. METHODS: Ten aborted fetuses with severe CHD (CHD group) and 7 gestational age-matched non-cardiac malformation aborted fetuses (control group) were enrolled. Western blot analysis was undertaken to assess the expression of p38, p38α, p-p38, MEF2, ERK, p-ERK, Akt, p-AktSer473 and p-AktThr308 in left ventricles and placentas of the fetuses, while semi-quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to detect the expression of p38α isoforms mRNA in hearts. RESULTS: Compared with the heart samples of the control group, the protein expression levels of p38 and its α isoform in 4 cases, p-p38 in 6 cases, MEF2 in 2 cases, p-ERK in 8 cases, Akt in 4 cases, p-AktSer473 and p-AktThr308 in 8 cases decreased, while the protein expression levels of p-p38 in 2 cases and p-AktThr308 in 1 case increased. P-p38 protein level in 3 cases and p-ERK protein level in 2 cases decreased in placentas compared with the control group. The changes of protein expression of MAPK and Akt signaling pathway in hearts were not consistent with those in placentas in the CHD group. The expression of p38α isoform2 mRNA showed descent tendency in 4 heart samples with CHD, while the expression of other three p38α isoforms mRNA was reduced in only 1 sample compared with the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Dysfunction of MAPK and Akt signaling pathways is tissue-specific in aborted fetuses with CHD. The perturbed two signaling pathways in hearts may contribute to the pathogenesis of human CHD.［Chin J Contemp Pediatr, 2010, 12 (5):327-332］
XU Jie,YANG Zhong-Zhou,ZHANG Shu et al. Changes of MAPK and Akt signaling pathways in hearts and placentas of aborted fetuses with congenital heart disease[J]. CJCP, 2010, 12(05): 327-332.
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