Volume 12, No 2, Jun 2002

ISSN: 1001-0602 
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018 
impact factor 17.848* 
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)

Volume 12 Issue 2, June 2002: 123-132

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Overexpression of heme oxygenase-1 protects smooth muscle cells against oxidative injury and inhibits cell proliferation

Min ZHANG¹, Bao Hui ZHANG¹, Li CHEN², Wei AN^2,*

¹Institute of Sports Medicine, The Third Hospital, Peking University, Beijing 100083, China
²Department of Cell Biology, Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100054, China Correspondence:

To investigate whether the expression of exogenous heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) gene within vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) could protect the cells from free radical attack and inhibit cell proliferation, we established an in vitro transfection of human HO-1 gene into rat VSMC mediated by a retroviral vector. The results showed that the profound expression of HO-1 protein as well as HO activity was 1.8- and 2.0-fold increased respectively in the transfected cells compared to the non-transfected ones. The treatment of VSMC with different concentrations of H₂O₂ led to the remarkable cell damage as indicated by survival rate and LDH leakage. However, the resistance of the HO-1 transfected VSMC against H₂O₂ was significantly raised. This protective effect was dramatically diminished when the transfected VSMC were pretreated with ZnPP-IX, a specific inhibitor of HO, for 24 h. In addition, we found that the growth potential of the transfected cells was significantly inhibited directly by increased activity of HO-1, and this effect might be related to decreased phosphorylation of MAPK. These results suggest that the overexpression of introduced hHO-1 is potentially able to reduce the risk factors of atherosclerosis, partially due to its cellular protection against oxidative injury and to its inhibitory effect on cellular proliferation.

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