Sexual Differences in Mitochondrial Proteins in Rat Cerebral Microvessels: A Proteomic Approach

Abstract

Sex differences in mitochondrial numbers and function are present in large cerebral arteries, but it is unclear whether these differences extend to the microcirculation. We performed an assessment of mitochondria-related proteins in cerebral microvessels (MVs) isolated from young, male and female, Sprague-Dawley rats. MVs composed of arterioles, capillaries, and venules were isolated from the cerebrum and used to perform a 3 vs. 3 quantitative, multiplexed proteomics experiment utilizing tandem mass tags (TMT), coupled with liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS). MS data and bioinformatic analyses were performed using Proteome Discoverer version 2.2 and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. We identified a total of 1,969 proteins, of which 1,871 were quantified by TMT labels. Sixty-four proteins were expressed significantly (p < 0.05) higher in female samples compared with male samples. Females expressed more mitochondrial proteins involved in energy production, mitochondrial membrane structure, anti-oxidant enzyme proteins, and those involved in fatty acid oxidation. Conversely, males had higher expression levels of mitochondria-destructive proteins. We validated our key Proteomics results with western blotting. Our findings reveal, for the first time, the full extent of sexual dimorphism in the mitochondrial metabolic protein profiles of MVs, which may contribute to sex-dependent cerebrovascular and neurological pathologies. SynopsisEnergy-producing proteins in the cerebral microvessels (MVs) of male and female rats were examined by quantitative discovery-based proteomics to gain insight into the sex-dependent etiology of cardiovascular and neurological diseases. Females expressed more mitochondrial proteins involved in energy production, membrane structure, anti-oxidant activity, and fatty acid oxidation. In contrast, males exhibited more mitochondria-destructive proteins such as mitochondrial eating protein. Our findings reveal for the first time the sexual dimorphism of mitochondria-related proteins in cerebral MVs, which may explain functional sex-related differences in MVs during health and in the etiology of neurological pathologies of cerebrovascular origin. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe thank Nancy Busija, MA, for editing the manuscript. We thank Dana Liu for technical help.