Effects of Estrogen Receptor Signaling on Blood Vessel Architecture in Lung Tissue

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) includes various, often fatal, diseases caused by high blood pressure in the lung, impacting pulmonary arteries and the cardiac muscle in the right side of the heart. Female patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a subset of PH, are affected by PAH at higher rates but have a higher rate of survival. Past studies have investigated the impact of estrogen on the progression and development of this disease; however, many knowledge gaps remain. As the blood vessels become narrow and damaged, leading to weakened right heart muscle and eventual failure, analyzing artery wall remodeling in lung tissue with ImageJ software will lead to a better understanding of the impacts of estrogen on blood vessel architecture. The rat lung tissues used were obtained from a control group and a group with experimental PH; several of these animals also underwent estrogen treatments and manipulations. Specifically, measuring the inner and outer artery wall areas in a blinded manner, along with performing statistical and visualization analyses to draw relevant conclusions, will lead to comparable quantitative data for the types of lung tissue. Observing the impacts of different variables in PH will further the understanding of, and potential treatments for, this disease.

Supervisor: Tim Lahm
Department: Pulmonary