Human vascular smooth muscle cells from diabetic patients are resistant to induced apoptosis due to high Bcl‐2 expression

Abstract

Aim Our aim was to study whether arteries and vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) isolated from diabetic patients exhibit resistance to apoptosis. Internal mammary arteries (IMS) were obtained from patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Results Arteries from diabetic patients showed increasing levels of Bcl-2 expression in the media layer measured by immunofluorescence and by Western blotting. VSMC from diabetic patients showed resistance to apoptosis measured as DNA fragmentation and caspase-3 activation, induced by C-reactive protein. The diabetic cells also exhibited overexpression of Bcl-2. Consistent with the above we found that pretreatment of non diabetic VSMC with high glucose abolished the degradation of Bcl-2 induced by C-reactive protein. Conclusion We have presented new data which enhance our understanding of the mechanisms which underlie vascular remodeling in diabetic patients and form the basis for discovering promising targets for new drugs to prevent the vascular complications in type 2 Diabetes. This work was funded by Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias FISS 01/0815 and by RECAVA C03/01(Health Research Fund from the Spanish Ministry of Health). We thank the Cardiac Surgery Service (Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid) for providing us with the IMS