Proteoglycan Synthesis by the Neointimal Smooth Muscle Cells Cultured from Rabbit Aortic Explants following De-Endothelialization

Abstract

Proteoglycans (PGs), the essential component of the extracellular matrix, are implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In an experimental model of injury, PGs accumulate in the neointimal tissue parallel with lipid deposition. However, it is still not clear whether the PG accumulation is from active smooth muscle cell (SMC) production or is a consequence of trapping within neointima covered by endothelium. To study the effect of endothelial injury on PG synthesis, SMCs were cultured from normal aorta (N-SMC), neointima covered by regenerated endothelium (W-SMC) and neointima without endothelium (B-SMC). Using [³⁵S]-Na2SC·4, as a precursor in an in vitro incubation, the kinetics of PG synthesis were determined. PG synthesis by all three cell types increases as a function of time. It is significantly higher in the SMCs cultured from endothelium-denuded aortic explants (W- and B-SMC) than N-SMC. This finding indicates that endothelial injury stimulates PG synthesis by SMCs.

Effect of insulin and growth hormone on the synthesis of radiolabelled proteoglycans from cultured human arterial smooth-muscle cells

“…Furthermore, endothelial injury of rabbit aorta has been shown to stimulate PG production with little changes in HSPG (33). The reduced HSPG content in small vessels from diabetic patients plus our data support the hypothesis that growth hormone may play a key role in the pathogenesis of diabetic vascular disease.…”

Antiproliferative and c‐myc mRNA suppressive effects of tranilast on newborn human vascular smooth muscle cells in culture

“…VSMCs derived from neointima are considered to proliferate faster in vitro than those from media (Majesky et al, 1988;Dartsch et al, 1990;Li et al, 1994). In this study, we compared the proliferation between VSMCs from newborn and adult human VSMC in culture.…”

On How Insulin May Influence Ageing and Become Atherogenic throughout the Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 Receptor Pathway: In vitro Studies with Human Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

“…SMCs from rat aortas were used to guarantee the reproducibility of results due to the need of a large amount of cells from a unique source and culture state. The aortic explant procedure was done essentially according to Li et al [20] with minor modifi cations. In these isolated cells we tested the effectiveness of the hormones and antibodies used.…”