Role of TGF-β1/Smad3 Signaling Pathway in Secretion of Type I and III Collagen by Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells of Rats Undergoing Balloon Injury
Figure 1
Expressions of TGF-, Smad3, and type I and III collagen in VSMCs from rats undergoing carotid artery balloon injury. SD rats aged 6 weeks were employed to establish the postcarotid artery balloon injury RS model. Two weeks after injury, tissue block culture was performed to culture the VSMCs in DMEM containing 10% FBS. These cells were divided into normal group and injury group, and immunohistochemistry for -SMA was done to identify the VSMCs. VSMCs of passage 3 were collected for the following experiments. (a) quantitative RT-PCR. The mRNA expressions of TGF-1, Smad3, and type I and III collagen were independently normalized to that of -actin as the relative expression. The mRNA expression of target genes in the normal group was defined as the baseline level, and that in the injury group was normalized to that in the normal group as fold change which was then used for delineation. Data were expressed as mean SD. (b) The culture medium was collected, and ELISA was performed to measure the contents of TGF-1, type I and III collagen. ▲, ■ versus normal group.
