Amphiregulin is overexpressed in human cardiac tissue in hypothermia deaths; associations between the transcript and stress hormone levels in cardiac deaths

Figures

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  Figure 1.. Amphiregulin expression in human heart tissue in different types of deaths. Mean relative AREG mRNA level is shown with standard error and including individual data points on logarithmic scale. COD, cause of death; CVD, cardiovascular disease; AHD, atherosclerotic heart disease; AMI, acute myocardial infarction; HTA, arterial hypertension. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001 vs. hypothermia main COD; Ɨp < 0.05, Ɨ Ɨp < 0.01 vs. hypothermia contributory COD.

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  Figure 2.. Localization of amphiregulin in the human heart from hypothermia victim. (A,C) AREG transcripts (red dots) are present in cytoplasm and in some nuclei of cardiomyocytes. (B,D) Signal for AREG protein is detected in cardiomyocytes with cytoplasmic staining and membranous staining of nuclei.

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  Figure 3.. Urine concentrations of the stress hormones in different death cause groups. Median level (ng/ml) with standard error for A and NA (A) and cortisol (B). COD, cause of death; CVD, cardiovascular disease; AHD, atherosclerotic heart disease; AMI, acute myocardial infarction; HTA, arterial hypertension. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 vs. hypothermia main COD; Ɨp < 0.05, Ɨ Ɨp < 0.01 vs. hypothermia contributory COD; +p < 0.05 vs. ischaemic CVD/AHD; oop < 0.01 vs. CVD/AHD + AMI; ¤p < 0.05 vs. CVD/AHD + HTA.

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  Figure 4.. Visualization of correlations between amphiregulin expression and stress hormones. The non-parametric Spearman’s rho correlation tests were carried out and presented as scatterplots using the GraphPad Prism. FC, fold change; CI, confidence interval; A/NA, adrenaline to noradrenaline ratio.

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  Figure 5.. Visualization of correlations between catecholamines and cortisol. The non-parametric spearman’s rho correlation tests were carried out and presented as scatterplots using the GraphPad Prism. CI, confidence interval; A/NA, adrenaline to noradrenaline ratio.

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  Figure 6.. Potential regulatory elements for catecholamines and cortisol in AREG proximal promoter. Selected transcription factor binding sites were predicted by PROMO using TRANSFAC database. Putative GR binding sites and sites for CREB are shown along the AREG sequence 500 bp upstream from ATG-codon. Blocks marked with 0, 1 and 2 represent putative GR, GR-alpha and GR-beta binding sites, respectively. Blocks marked with 3 represent CREB binding sites. Sites marked with * have dissimilarity margins ≤0.21% and others ≤10%.