TGF-β1 induces human aortic vascular smooth muscle cell phenotype switch through PI3K/AKT/ID2 signaling.

The vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotypic switch is considered to be the key pathophysiological change in various cardiovascular diseases, such as aortic dissection, atherosclerosis, and hypertension. The results in this study showed that TGF-β1 promotes the proliferation, migration and morphological changes of VSMC.TGF-β1 promoted the expressions of PI3K, P-PI3K, AKT, P-AKT, ID2, and OPN protein and suppressed the expressions of α-SMA and SM22α protein; the opposite results were observed for TGF-β1 inhibitor group, AKT inhibitor group and Combined inhibitors group.