The Expression Of FHL-1 In Hypoxic Pulmonary Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells

Background Pulmonary hypertension(PH) is the common clinical symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD ) and some other chronic hypoxic pulmonary diseases. Different forms of PH are characterized by vascular remodeling which is caused by the pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells proliferation and immigration, the abnormality deposition of extracellular matrix and the non-muscle type of muscle angiogenesis, resulting in increased peripheral resistance pulmonary circulation. The molecular pathways triggering the PH and remodeling progressare poorly understood. FHL-1(four and a half LIM domain 1) is a novel protein of LIM family and many studies have shown that FHL-1 plays an important role in the differentiation and function of smooth muscle. However, the role of LIM is poor known in the formation of PPH .Objective To investigate the effect of FHL-1 on the expression of hypoxia-induced pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells.Mothods The rats pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells were isolated from fresh normal lung tissues and cultured, which were divided into normoxic group(cell culture box containing 21%O2,5%CO2,74%N2) and hypoxic group(cell culture box containing 1.5%O2,5%CO2,93.5%N2). Expression of FHL-1 was accessed by immunohistochemical staining.Results①The cultured smooth muscle cells grew with long spindle-shape and showed typical"hill and valley"pattern under an invered microscope. The purity of the smooth muscle cells cultures assessed by immunostaining forα-SMA was over 98%.②The expression of hypoxic group was significantly higher than in the normoxic group(P<0.05)Conclusions These results indicate that FHL-1 highly expresses in hypoxia-induced pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells, which suggests it may be associated with the formation of hypoxic pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary vascular remodeling.