Study subjects (patients and samples)
Venous blood samples were acquired from 26 patients that underwent coronary stenting at the Department of Cardiology, Zhongda Hospital affiliated to the Medical College of Southeast University between the year of 2019 to 2020. All participants provided written consent prior to participating in the study.Study approval was obtained from the Human Subjects Committee at the Zhongda Hospital, Southeast University. Subjects were enrolled in the study according to the following inclusion criteria: 1) between the ages of 45-75; 2) after stent implantation, the patients adhere to completion of the secondary prevention of coronary heart disease; 3)the type of stent placed within the patient stent is common, and the surgery was conducted in the last 1 to 3 years. The exclusion criteria included diagnosis of diabetes mellitus, acute and chronic infection, hepatic and renal insufficiency, hematological diseases, severe bleeding, autoimmune diseases, malignant tumors, severe trauma, non-atherosclerotic acute myocardial infarction. The patients’ plasma samples were collected in EDTA tubes. The patients were divided into either restenosis group or the no restenosis group (control group), according to their coronary angiography results. The blood was centrifuged at 4 °, 2000rpm centrifugation for 15min within the first hour of collection. The plasma samples were stored at-80 °C until further processing. Three patients with restenosis and three patients without restenosis were randomly selected for genetic sequencing, while the remain samples were validated using by qRT-PCR.
Isolation and purification of exosomes
We used the TEN solution(0. 05 mol/L Tris-HCl,0. 15 mol/L NaCl,6 mmol/L EDTA-2Na,pH7. 4) to suspend platelet. Next, we extracted the platelet exosomes, which were then isolated and purified using the Platelet Exosome Isolation Kit (Invitrogen), as per the manufacturer’s direction. We obtained the platelet exosome as a precipitate, which was then re-suspended in 50 to 200 μ l PBS and stored at-80 ℃ .
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) and Western blotting(WB)
The exosomes were fixed using glutaraldehyde for two hours. Next, we added 5-10 μ l of exosome solution to copper mesh, and let it adsorb for appropximately 10min at room temperature. We carefully absorbed the excess liquid with filter paper. Then, 10 μ l of 2% phosphotungstic acid solution (pH=6.5) was added to the copper net. Exosome staining was conducted by treating for 2 min at room temperature. Then, we carefully absorbed the excess dye with filter paper and dried the copper net at room temperature. The exosomes were observed on the machine, at a voltage of 120kV. The particle size, concentrations and distribution of exosomes were analyzed using Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) by NanoSight NS300 (Malvern Instruments, Shanghai, China).
Exosome protein denaturation was carried out as follows. After exosome lysate centrifugation, the supernatant was collected and 5 × SDS-PAGE protein up-sample buffer was added according to 4:1 ratio. The EP tube was heated in a metal bath at 100℃ for 10 minutes in order to denature the protein. After cooling, the protein was stored at -80 ℃ for future use. The BCA protein detection kit (DHbiotech, Shanghai) was utilized to detect protein concentration according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The expression of various exosome markers (CD9, CD69 and TSG101) was analyzed by Western blotting. Next, proteins were transferred onto a polyvinylidene difluoride(PVDF) membrane. We used a rabbit monoclonal antibody to CD9 and CD69 (Abcam) and mouse monoclonal antibody to TSG101 (Abcam) with dilution ratio of 1:1000 and secondary antibody (Abcam) at 1:10 000 dilution.
Extraction of total RNA, library Construction and RNA sequencing analysis
Using RNAprep pure cell Kit (TianGen BioTech, China), we isolated total RNA from PDEs. The RNA concentrations was validated by a NanoDrop ND-1000 spectrophotometer (Thermo Scientific). The experimental process was conducted according to instructions provided by Illumina, including the preparation of library and sequencing experiments. The small RNA sequencing library was prepared by TruSeq Small RNA Sample Prep Kits (Illumina, San Diego, USA). After the library was prepared, it was sequenced by Illumina Hiseq2000/2500, with a sequencing read length of single-ended 1X50 bp.
qRT-PCR Validation of candidate miRNAs
The expression of differentially expressed miRNAs in the sequencing results was validated by qRT-PCR. The template complementary DNA (CDNA) was synthesized using the PrimeScript RT kit (China Dalian, Takara), with slightly modified random primers, as per the manufacturer's instructions. Then, we used the resulting cDNA as a template. RT- PCR amplification was conducted by SuperReal PreMix Plus (SYBR Green; TianGen BioTech, China) and analyzed using Prism 7500 SDS (Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA). The amplification steps included heating to 95 °C for 10 minutes, 95 °C for 40 cycles of 10 seconds each, and then 60 °C for 15 seconds. The last step was to cool down to 72 °C for 20 seconds. GAPDH was used as an internal control for measuring RNA expression. The relative miRNA expression was calculated using 2−ΔΔCt method.
miRNAs-gene-GO and miRNA-gene-KEGG interaction networks
Several studies have indicated that miRNAs act as negative regulatory factors for regulating various physiological processes within the body[23, 24]. In order to explore the possible function of microRNAs from PDEs in coronary artery ISR, the interaction of miRNA-gene-GO and miRNA-gene-KEGG was predicted based on the in silico prediction methods TargetScan and Miranda. Firstly,gene Ontology (GO) functional significance enrichment analysis mapped all significantly differentially expressed genes to each term within the GO database, and the number of genes was calculated within each term. We then used hypergeometric test to identify the GO items that were enriched in significant differentially expressed genes compared to the whole genome background.
Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) not only provides all possible metabolic pathways, but also comprehensively annotates each enzymes that catalyzes each step of the reaction, including amino acid sequence, prorein data bank library, and other characteristics. Therefore we built miRNA-gene-GO network and miRNA-gene-KEGG network diagram using the Cytoscape 3.7.2 software.
Statistical analysis
All data is expressed as an average ± standard error of the mean(SEM). Non-paired t-test was utilized for comparison between the restenosis and the non-restenosis group. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. All statistical analyses were conducted using GraphPad Prism 5.0 (GraphPad Prism Software Inc, San Diego, CA,USA) and SPSS software for Windows (version 25.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA).
Authors declare to confirm that all methods had been performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.