Int J Biol Sci 2017; 13(10):1309-1319. doi:10.7150/ijbs.20254 This issue Cite
Research Paper
1. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, China;
2. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People's Hospital, Shanghai, 200233, China;
3. Centre for Clinical Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, United Kingdom;
4. Key Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine, Ministry of Education, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
* contributed equally to this work
Background: Vein graft failure due to neointimal hyperplasia remains an important and unresolved complication of cardiovascular surgery. microRNA-21 (miR-21) plays a major role in regulating vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation and phenotype transformation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine whether adenovirus-mediated miR-21 sponge gene therapy was able to inhibit neointimal hyperplasia in rat vein grafts.
Methods: Adenovirus-mediated miR-21 sponge was used to inhibit VSMC proliferation in vitro and neointimal formation in vivo. To improve efficiency of delivery gene transfer to the vein grafts, 20% poloxamer F-127 gel was used to increase virus contact time and 0.25% trypsin to increase virus penetration. Morphometric analyses and cellular proliferation were assessed for neointimal hyperplasia and VSMC proliferation.
Results: miR-21 sponge can significantly decrease the expression of miR-21 and proliferation in cultured VSMCs. Cellular proliferation rates were significantly reduced in miR-21 sponge-treated grafts compared with controls at 28 days after bypass surgery (14.6±9.4 vs 34.9±10.8%, P=0.0032). miR-21 sponge gene transfer therapy reduced the intimal/media area ratio in vein grafts compared with the controls (1.38±0.08 vs. 0.6±0.10, P<0.0001). miR-21 sponge treatment also improved vein graft hemodynamics. We further identified that phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) is a potential target gene that was involved in the miR-21-mediated effect on neointimal hyperplasia in vein grafts.
Conclusions: Adenovirus-mediated miR-21 sponge gene therapy effectively reduced neointimal formation in vein grafts. These results suggest that there is potential for miR-21 sponge to be used to prevent vein graft failure.
Keywords: MicroRNA, Neointimal formation, Gene therapy, Vein graft disease.