Transcriptional response of endometrial cells to insulin, cultured using microfluidics

Obesity is a rapidly growing public health issue among women of reproductive age associated with decreased reproductive function including implantation failure. This can result from a myriad of factors including impaired gametes and endometrial dysfunction. The mechanisms of how obesity-related hype...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Soo Young Baik (Author), Alisha Miani (Author), Haidee Tinning (Author), Dapeng Wang (Author), Daman J Adlam (Author), Peter T Ruane (Author), Niamh Forde (Author)
Format: Book
Published: Bioscientifica, 2023-06-01T00:00:00Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to this object online.
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Obesity is a rapidly growing public health issue among women of reproductive age associated with decreased reproductive function including implantation failure. This can result from a myriad of factors including impaired gametes and endometrial dysfunction. The mechanisms of how obesity-related hyperinsulinaemia disrupts endometrial function are poorly understood. We investigated potential mechanisms by which insulin alters endometrial transcript expression. Ishikawa cells were seeded into a microfluidics device attached to a syringe pump to deliver a constant flow rate of 1 μL/min of the following: (i) control (ii) vehicle control (acidified PBS), or (iii) insulin (10 ng/mL) for 24 h (n = 3 biological replicates). Insulin-induced transcriptomic response of endometrial epithelial cells was determined via RNA sequencing, and DAVID and Webgestalt to identify Gene Ontology (GO) terms and signalling pathways. A total of 29 transcripts showed differential expression levels across two comparison groups (control vs vehicle control; vehicle control vs insulin). Nine transcripts were differentially expressed in vehicle control vs insulin comparison (P < 0.05). Functional annotation analysis of transcripts altered by insulin (n = 9) identified three significantly enriched GO terms: SRP-dependent co-translational protein targeting to membrane, poly(A) binding, and RNA binding (P < 0.05). The overrepresentation analysis found three significantly enriched signalling pathways relating to insulin-induced transcriptomic response: protein export, glutathione metabolism, and ribosome pathways (P < 0.05). Transfection of siRNA for RAPSN successfully knocked down expression (P < 0.05), but this did not have any effect on cellular morphology. Insulin-induced dysregulation of biological functions and pathways highlights potential mechanisms by which high insulin concentrations within maternal circulation may perturb endometrial receptivity.
Item Description:https://doi.org/10.1530/RAF-21-0120
2633-8386