Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) involves progressive valve leaflet thickening and severe calcification, impairing leaflet motion. The in vitro calcification of primary rat, human, porcine and bovine aortic valve interstitial cells (VICs) is commonly employed to investigate CAVD mechanisms. However, to date, no published studies have utilised cell lines to investigate this process. The pres...

Emerging evidence indicates that upregulation of the ER stress-induced pro-osteogenic transcription factor ATF4 plays an important role in vascular calcification, a common complication in patients with aging, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease (CKD). In this study, we demonstrated the pathophysiological role of ATF4 in vascular calcification using global Atf4 KO, smooth muscle cell-specific (...

The regulation of phosphate (Pi) handling is crucial during calcification of the aortic valve. Gene profiling of Pi transporters revealed that VIC culture expresses SLC201A1/Pit1 and SLC20A2/Pit2. On exposure to a mineralizing medium (2 mM Pi), the expression of Pi transporters in VIC culture is increased several folds, with the highest magnitude for SLC20A1. By using siRNAs, we established tha...

Name of Gene Marker. POU1F1 POU domain, class 1, transcription factor 1 (PIT1, growth hormone factor 1). Species. Bos taurus, Ovis aries, Capra hircus. Source and Description of Clone. A bovine lambda genomic library (Clontech, Inc., Palo Alto, CA) was screened by using the bovine POU1F1 cDNA (kindly provided by M. Karin, University of California-San Diego). Positive recombinant phage were char...

PIT1, a member of the POU-domain family of genes, is a positive regulatory factor of growth hormone, prolactin, and thyrotroph-stimulating hormone /3 in several mammals. Therefore, PITl was chosen as a candidate gene to investigate its association with growth and carcass traits in pigs. The five Iowa State University referencehesource threegeneration families consisting of crosses of Meishan x ...