Objective: Calcific aortic valve disease is a progressive condition that shares some common pathogenic features with atherosclerosis. Transforming growth factor-β1 is a recognized mediator of atherosclerosis and is expressed in aortic valve lesions. Transforming growth factorβ1 stimulates glycosaminoglycan elongation of proteoglycans that is associated with increased lipid binding. We investigated the presence of transforming growth factor-β1 and downstream signaling intermediates in diseased human aortic valves and the effects of activated transforming growth factor-β1 receptor signaling on aortic valve interstitial cell proteoglycan synthesis and lipid binding as a possible mechanism for the initiation of the early lesion of calcific aortic valve disease.
Methods And Results: Diseased human aortic valve leaflets demonstrated strong immunohistochemical staining for transforming growth factor-β1 and phosphorylated Smad2/3. In primary porcine aortic valve interstitial cells, Western blots showed that transforming growth factor-β1 stimulated phosphorylation in both the carboxy and linker regions of Smad2/3, which was inhibited by the transforming growth factor-β1 receptor inhibitor SB431542. Gel electrophoresis and size exclusion chromatography demonstrated that SB431542 decreased transforming growth factor-β1-mediated [(35)S]-sulfate incorporation into proteoglycans in a dose-dependent manner. Further, in proteoglycans derived from transforming growth factor-β1-treated valve interstitial cells, gel mobility shift assays demonstrated that inhibition of transforming growth factor-β1 receptor signaling resulted in decreased lipid binding.
Conclusions: Classic transforming growth factor-β1 signaling is present in human aortic valves in vivo and contributes to the modification of proteoglycans expressed by valve interstitial cells in vitro. These findings suggest that transforming growth factor-β1 may promote increased low-density lipoprotein binding in the early phases of calcific aortic valve disease.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carpath.2012.07.002 | DOI Listing |
J Recept Signal Transduct Res
January 2025
Laboratory of Clinical Pharmaceutics, Gifu Pharmaceutical University, Gifu, Japan.
Lysyl oxidase (LOX), a copper-containing secretory oxidase, plays a key role in the regulation of extracellular stiffness through cross-linking with collagen and elastin. Among the LOX family of enzymes, LOX-like 4 (LOXL4) exhibits pro-tumor and anti-tumor properties; therefore, the functional role of LOXL4 in tumor progression is still under investigation. Here, we first determined that transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) significantly decreased LOXL4 expression in human breast cancer MDA-MB-231 cells, which suggested that decreased LOXL4 may participate in tumor progression.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, United States.
There are few in vitro models available to study microglial physiology in a homeostatic context. Recent approaches include the human induced pluripotent stem cell model, but these can be challenging for large-scale assays and may lead to batch variability. To advance our understanding of microglial biology while enabling scalability for high-throughput assays, we developed an inducible immortalized murine microglial cell line using a tetracycline expression system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt Immunopharmacol
January 2025
National Engineering Laboratory for Resource Development of Endangered Crude Drugs in Northwest China, Key Laboratory of Medicinal Resources and Natural Pharmaceutical Chemistry (Shaanxi Normal University), The Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710119, China. Electronic address:
Inflammation underlies a wide variety of physiological and pathological processes, the Lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced inflammation model is widely recognized as a classical inflammatory paradigm, while Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) serves as a potent immunosuppressant capable of inhibiting immune responses and mitigating inflammation. However, its in vivo instability and the high cost associated with purification have imposed limitations on its clinical application. Therefore, we propose a therapeutic strategy for genetically modifying extracellular vesicles (HEVs) derived from HEK-293 T cells to incorporate TGF-β which holds potential for mitigating LPS-induced inflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceuticals (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, Taibah University, Madinah 41477, Saudi Arabia.
Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of mortality worldwide and often results in substantial cognitive, motor, and psychological impairments, triggering oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and neurodegeneration. This study examined the neuroprotective effects of azithromycin (AZI) in TBI.
Methods: TBI was induced in rats using the weight-drop method.
Int J Mol Sci
January 2025
Clinical Division of General Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, Genera Intensive Care and Pain Therapy, Medical University Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Drug development for human disease relies on preclinical model systems such as human cell cultures and animal experiments before therapeutic treatments can ultimately be tested on humans in clinical studies. We here describe the generation of a novel human cell line (HLMVEC/SVTERT289) that we generated by transfection of microvascular endothelial cells from healthy donor lung tissue with the catalytic domain of telomerase and the SV40 large T/small t-antigen. These cells exhibited satisfactory growth characteristics and largely maintained their native characteristics, including morphology, cell surface marker expression, angiogenic potential and the protein composition of secreted extracellular vesicles.
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