Tollip Negatively Regulates Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell-Mediated Neointima Formation by Suppressing Akt-Dependent Signaling

作者:Zhi, Hong*; Gong, Fu-Han; Cheng, Wen-Lin; Zhu, Kongbo; Chen, Long; Yao, Yuyu; Ye, Xingzhou; Zhu, Xue-Yong; Li, Hongliang*
来源:Journal of the American Heart Association, 2018, 7(12): e006851.
DOI:10.1161/JAHA.117.006851

摘要

Background-Tollip, a well-established endogenous modulator of Toll-like receptor signaling, is involved in cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of Tollip in neointima formation and its associated mechanisms. @@@ Methods and Results-In this study, transient increases in Tollip expression were observed in platelet-derived growth factor-BB-treated vascular smooth muscle cells and following vascular injury in mice. We then applied loss-of-function and gain-of-function approaches to elucidate the effects of Tollip on neointima formation. While exaggerated neointima formation was observed in Tollip-deficient murine neointima formation models, Tollip overexpression alleviated vascular injury-induced neointima formation by preventing vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, dedifferentiation, and migration. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that Tollip overexpression may exert a protective role in the vasculature by suppressing Akt-dependent signaling, which was further confirmed in rescue experiments using the Akt-specific inhibitor (AKTI). @@@ Conclusions-Our findings indicate that Tollip protects against neointima formation by negatively regulating vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, dedifferentiation, and migration in an Akt-dependent manner. Upregulation of Tollip may be a promising strategy for treating vascular remodeling-related diseases.