Adenovirus-mediated sphingomyelin synthase 2 increases atherosclerotic lesions in ApoE KO mice

Lipids in Health and Disease

Research

Xiaogang Wang¹  Yarui Zhao¹  Yue Li¹  Jibin Dong¹  Manping Wu¹ 

[1] School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China;

关键词: Atherosclerotic Lesion;    Lipid Raft;    Aortic Root;    Recombinant Adenovirus;    Atherogenic Lipoprotein;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1476-511X-10-7

 received in 2010-11-25, accepted in 2011-01-17,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundSphingomyelin synthase 2 (SMS2) contributes to de novo sphingomyelin (SM) biosynthesis. Its activity is related to SM levels in the plasma and the cell membrane. In this study, we investigated the possibility of a direct relationship between SMS and atherosclerosis.MethodsThe Adenovirus containing SMS2 gene was given into 10-week ApoE KO C57BL/6J mice by femoral intravenous injection. In the control group, the Adenovirus containing GFP was given. To confirm this model, we took both mRNA level examination (RT-PCR) and protein level examination (SMS activity assay).ResultWe generated recombinant adenovirus vectors containing either human SMS2 cDNA (AdV-SMS2) or GFP cDNA (AdV-GFP). On day six after intravenous infusion of 2 × 1011 particle numbers into ten-week-old apoE KO mice, AdV-SMS2 treatment significantly increased liver SMS2 mRNA levels and SMS activity (by 2.7-fold, 2.3-fold, p < 0.001, respectively), compared to AdV-GFP treated mice. Moreover, plasma total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglyceride (TG), and sphingomyelin (SM) levels were significantly increased by 39% (p < 0.05), 42% (p < 0.05), 68% (p < 0.001), and 45% (p < 0.05), respectively. Plasma high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), phosphatidylcholine (PC), and PC/SM ratio were decreased by 42% (p < 0.05), 18% (p < 0.05), and 45% (p < 0.05), respectively. On day 30, the atherosclerotic lesions on the aortic arch of AdV-SMS2 treated mice were increased, and the lesion areas on the whole aorta and in the aortic root were significantly increased (p < 0.001). Furthermore, the collagen content in the aorta root was significantly decreased (p < 0.01).ConclusionsOur results present direct morphological evidence for the pro-atherogenic capabilities of SMS2. SMS2 could be a potential target for treating atherosclerosis.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Wang et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.