RESEARCH ARTICLE
Effects of Cyclic Strain and Growth Factors on Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Responses
Soujanya Kona†, 1, Prithiviraj Chellamuthu†, 2, Hao Xu1, Seth R Hills2, Kytai Truong Nguyen*, 1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 28
Last Page: 38
Publisher ID: TOBEJ-3-28
DOI: 10.2174/1874120700903010028
Article History:
Received Date: 21/5/2009Revision Received Date: 6/7/2009
Acceptance Date: 9/7/2009
Electronic publication date: 31/8/2009
Collection year: 2009
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Under physiological and pathological conditions, vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) are exposed to different biochemical factors and biomechanical forces. Previous studies pertaining to SMC responses have not investigated the effects of both factors on SMCs. Thus, in our research we investigated the combined effects of growth factors like Bfgf (basic fibroblast growth factor), TGF-β (transforming growth factor β) and PDGF (platelet-derived growth factor) along with physiological cyclic strain on SMC responses. Physiological cyclic strain (10% strain) significantly reduced SMC proliferation compared to static controls while addition of growth factors bFGF, TGF-β or PDGF-AB had a positive influence on SMC growth compared to strain alone. Microarray analysis of SMCs exposed to these growth factors and cyclic strain showed that several bioactive genes (vascular endothelial growth factor, epidermal growth factor receptor, etc.) were altered upon exposure. Further work involving biochemical and pathological cyclic strain stimulation will help us better understand the role of cyclic strain and growth factors in vascular functions and development of vascular disorders.