Poster abstracts

Poster number 30 submitted by Cho-Hao Lin

The role of endothelial cell-induced Notch signaling in the phenotypic modulation of vascular smooth muscle cells

Cho-Hao Lin (Department of Pediatrics), Brenda Lilly (Department of Pediatrics)

Abstract:
Mature vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) have phenotypic plasticity that allows them to transition between contractile, proliferative and synthetic phenotypes in response to environmental cues or blood vessel injury. A primary focus of our lab has been to understand the signaling interactions between endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells. In this current study, we sought to explore how signaling between endothelial cells and VSMCs influenced VSMC phenotypic switching. Previous studies from our lab demonstrated that endothelial cells induce differentiation-specific gene expression when co-cultured with smooth muscle cells or their precursors, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Our results have further shown that endothelial cells not only induce a contractile phenotype in VSMCs and MSCs, but also repress cell proliferation. Moreover, our data indicate that co-cultured endothelial cells can induce collagen synthesis, an indicator of a synthetic phenotype. Our findings demonstrate that endothelial cell-induced Notch signaling plays a critical role in the regulation of SMC differentiation and phenotypic modulation. These studies are poised to elucidate the regulatory role that endothelial cell signaling has on smooth muscle cell phenotypes. A better knowledge of how endothelial cells regulate SMC phenotypic properties will facilitate the development of innovative treatments to improve cardiovascular disease outcomes.

Keywords: Notch, smooth muscle , mesenchymal stem cell