FA 5 Progress Report WV-INBRE - Joan C. Edwards School of ...

Program Director/Principal Investigator (Last, First, Middle): Rankin, Gary O 123genital tract during Chlamydia infection in the mouse model. Preliminary data of the cervical regions of micerepresenting stressed and non-stressed mice showed no significant difference of hispathology. However,gross examination revealed that stressed and infected mice had fluid-filled and heavily extended uterusunlike non-stressed infected mice.Lastly, Dr. Belay is working to elucidate the mechanism(s) by which stress increases susceptibility toChlamydia trachomatis genital infection in the mouse model. Work is just beginning in this area.ARRA Supplement 3P20RR016477-09S2: Dr. Nalini Satanam, Project Director, MU, “Epicardial fatbiomarkers in patients with coronary artery disease in Appalachia”The immediate goal of this project is to identify unique fat biomarkers in epicardial fat obtained from WestVirginia patients with and without coronary artery disease (CAD) undergoing thoracic surgery. To date, withthe help of Dr. Christopher Adams, Dr. Paulette Wehner and Dr. Todd Gress (Dept. Cardiovascular Services)and Dr. Chowdhury (Dept. Thoracic Surgery) 60 subjects (30 men and 30 women) undergoing coronaryartery bypass graft surgery (CABG) at the St. Mary’s Heart Center, Huntington, WV (IRB approved study)have successfully recruited. They are in the process of recruiting control patients (no coronary arterydisease) undergoing valve type surgery. Blood, epicardial/perivascular fat and subcutaneous fat from allsubjects have been collected at the time of the surgery. The multiplex analysis (39 chemokines/cytokinearray) of the plasma samples obtained from CAD patients revealed that several cytokines/chemokineswere altered in a sex specific manner. Clinical correlations revealed a positive association with the increasein chemokines to increased presence of congestive heart failure. As a preliminary study, the human miRNAmicroarray consisting of over 88 miRNAs relevant to humans was performed on the RNA isolated fromepicardial fat and subcutaneous fat obtained from patients (n=8/sex). Females had no up-regulatedexpression while males had 27 up-regulated miRNAs in EF. Females had 13 while males had 16down-regulated miRNAs. MiR 122, MiR 196-b, MiR 302c, and MiR 210 all showed decreased expression inboth males and females and remains a cause for further study.Whole genome miRNA arrays (800 miRNAs inhumans) have been performed in approximately 8 patients. miRNAs were isolated from both epicardial andsubcutaneous fat and whole genome miRNA was performed using the Roche 480 system. Dataanalysis will be performed with the assistance of the Bioinformatics Core. Since the last APR fivepresentations have been made. Dr. Christopher Adams won the “Best Poster” at the WV Chapter of theAmerican College of Cardiology meeting and was selected to present the poster at the national meeting.One cardiology fellow (Dr. Adams), one medical student and six undergraduates have participated in thisresearch.ARRA Supplement 3P20RR016477-09S3 and HSTA initiativesThe goal of this supplement is to provide PUI undergraduates the opportunity to work on WV-INBRE fundedresearch projects and provide HSTA high school science teachers the opportunity to participate in thesummer research program to gain skills and experience in biomedical research. During the 2010-2011academic year, 8 undergraduates were placed in the WV-INBRE funded research labs at Bluefield StateCollege (2), Concord University (1), West Virginia State University (1), West Liberty University (2), andWest Virginia Wesleyan College (2) with S3. Five high school science teachers were funded from the S3supplement for 9-week summer research internships that began on June 13, 2011. Wendy Lee fromMusselman High School and Denise Gipson from Jefferson High School were mentored by Dr. Seung-yunKim at Shepherd University. Timothy Clifton from Herbert Hoover High School and Tiffani Smith fromHuntington High School were mentored by Dr. Robert Harris at West Virginia State University. ReneNorman from Sissonville High School was mentored by Dr. Dean Reardon at University of Charleston.Two additional teachers were funded from the prime award for internships this summer: Johnathan Baldwinfrom Scott High School was mentored by Dr. Gerald Hankins at West Virginia State University and BrianMcNeel from Cabell Midland High School was mentored by Dr. Richard Egleton at MU. During the2011-2012 academic year, 2 undergraduates were placed in the WV-INBRE funded research labs:Bluefield State College (1) and West Liberty University (1).PHS 2590 (Rev. 06/09)Continuation Format Page