Author : Preeti Verma, Umesh K Shandilya, Monika Sodhi, Ankita Sharma, Pawan K Tripathi, and Manishi Mukesh

Hypoxic condition is known to influence the cell survivability by inhibiting its metabolism and growth. Till date, no information is available on how the mammary epithelial cells (MECs) of dairy species respond to chemically induced hypoxia. This study was therefore planned to assess the transcriptional responsiveness of mammary epithelial cells (MECs) of riverine buffaloes- the major dairy species of India to chemically induced hypoxic condition. Initially, the primary MECs culture from buffalo mammary gland tissue was established and thereafter different doses of CoCl2 (50 μM, 100 μM and 250 μM) were evaluated for inducing hypoxia in MECs under culture condition. The 250 μM of CoCl2 was selected and cells were grown for 48 h before assessing the expression of HIF-1α and its target genes in treated (hypoxic) as well as in control (normoxic) cells. The mRNA expression of all studied genes viz; HIF-1α, GLUT-1, GLUT-8, HK2, JAK2 and STAT5 was found to be significantly induced in hypoxic condition in comparison to control condition. The present investigation suggests that CoCl2 induced hypoxia significantly alters the gene expression of hypoxia related genes in buffalo MECs. Such model can be utilized in future for studying the impact of hypoxia stress in mammary gland development and function of dairy species.

Keywords: Hypoxia, Mammary epithelial cells, Gene expression, Riverine buffaloes