Placenta growth factor expression is regulated by hydrogen peroxide in vascular smooth muscle cells

Abstract

When supply arteries become occluded, blood is diverted through preexisting collateral vessels. Shear stress arising from this increase in blood flow provides the initial physiological stimulus for expansion of the collateral circulation, a process termed arteriogenesis. Endothelial cells (EC) respond to increased shear stress by releasing a variety of mediators that can act on underlying smooth muscle cells (SMC). Placenta growth factor (PLGF) is known to mediate certain aspects of arteriogenesis, such as recruitment of monocytes to the vessel wall. Therefore, we tested whether SMC PLGF expression is influenced by mediators released by EC. We used A10 SMC cultured with medium that had been conditioned by EOMA EC for 4 days as a model. We found that EC-conditioned medium is able to upregulate PLGF gene expression in A10 SMC. Further experiments identified hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) as a key mediator of this response. We confirmed the physiological relevance of this mechanism in primary human coronary artery SMCs by demonstrating that exogenous H₂O₂ specifically upregulates PLGF gene and protein expression. We also demonstrated that the physiological stimulus of shear stress raises endogenous H₂O₂ levels in media into the range found to increase PLGF expression. In this study, we demonstrate that EC-released H₂O₂ acts as a positive regulator of PLGF gene and protein expression in vascular SMC. To our knowledge, this is the first study to describe H₂O₂ as a regulator of PLGF expression and therefore an upstream mediator of PLGF-driven arteriogenesis.