Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 promotes vascular endothelial cell proliferation and migration by fractalkine

Abstract

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) and Chemokine CX3C ligand 1 (Fractalkine/CX3CL1) play important roles in vascular inflammation and injury. To study if STAT3 promotes vascular endothelial cell proliferation and migration through fractalkine, we overexpressed or knocked down STAT3 in vascular endothelial cells, and used quantitative real-time PCR and Western blotting to determine the effect of STAT3 on fractalkine expression. The wild type and STAT3 binding site mutant fractalkine promoter luciferase reporter plasmids were constructed, and luciferase activity assays were used to explore the effect of STAT3 on the transcriptional activity of the fractalkine promoter. MTT assays were used to detect the effect of overexpression or knockdown of STAT3 or fractalkine on the proliferation rate of vascular endothelial cells. Scratch assays were used to detect the effect of overexpression or knockdown of STAT3 or fractalkine on vascular endothelial cell migration. There results showed that overexpression of STAT3 could promote fractalkine expression, and knockdown of STAT3 could down-regulate fractalkine expression. STAT3 could directly bind to the promoter of fractalkine to promote its transcriptional activity via binding the GAS site of the fractalkine promoter. Knockdown of STAT3 could inhibit the migration of vascular endothelial cell, and overexpression of fractalkine antagonized this inhibition. Our data concluded that STAT3 promotes the proliferation and migration of vascular endothelial cell by binding the GAS site of the fractalkine promoter to promote fractalkine transcriptional activity and expression.