IDENTIFICATION OF A PHOSPHODIESTERASE-I NUCLEOTIDE PYROPHOSPHATASE-RELATED GENE MESSENGER-RNA IN RAT VASCULAR SMOOTH-MUSCLE CELLS BY THE DIFFERENTIAL DISPLAY APPROACH

Vascular smooth muscle cell hypertrophy and proliferation may particip ate in the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease. The analysis of changes in gene expression in vascular smooth muscle cells is crucial to the understanding of the molecular biology of cardiovascular diseas e. An effective method for analysis of gene expression is the differen tial display approach. Applying the differential display approach, we identified a gp130(RB13-6)-relatd gene in vascular smooth muscle cells following stimulation with platelet-derived growth factor-BE and angi otensin II. It is well known that gp130(RB13-6) is a phosphodiesterase /nudeotide pyrophosphatase. Northern blotting and reverse transcriptas e-polymerase chain reaction analysis revealed a dramatic down-regulati on of the gp130(RB13-6)-related mRNA after six hours of stimulation of the cells with both agonists. Recently, gp130(RB13-6) was identified as a rat neural differentiation and tumor cell surface plasma membrane glycoprotein. These findings demonstrate that the expression of gp130 (RB13-6) mRNA in vascular smooth muscle cells is remarkably regulated by growth factors and therefore may play an important role in the regu lation of vascular smooth muscle cell growth. (C) 1998 Academic Press Limited.