High Glucose-Induced Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation and Migration are Regulated by the miR-34a-Notch1 Pathway
Abstract High glucose(HG)-induced excessive proliferation and migration of the media vascular smooth muscle cell(VSMC) are the main pathological characteristics in diabetes related vascular injuries. Previous studies have shown that microRNA-34a (miR-34a) is involved in cancer metastasis, proliferation and invasion and plays an essential role in cardiovascular disease. However, little is known about the regulating role miR-34a in HG-induced proliferation and migration of VSMC. Here we demonstrated that miR-34a was downregulated at different timepoints under HG stimulation. Then, HG induced proliferation and migration was found to be impaired by miR-34a overexpression using transwell, CCK8 and RT-qPCR assays. Furthermore, the HG-induced depression of “contractile” VSMC-specific markers were reversed by the overexpression of miR-34a. Moreover, we confirmed that miR-34a regulated HG-induced VSMC proliferation and migration through its target gene, Notch1, which has been shown to be associated with cell proliferation and migration in previous studies. Taken together, we propose that the miR34a-Notch1 axis plays an important role in regulating HG-induced VSMC proliferation and migration.
