ABSTRACT
AIM:To investigate the regulatory effects of microRNA (miR)-130a on the biological characteris-tics of rat basilar arterial smooth muscle cells (BASMCs) and its underlying mechanisms. METHODS:The expression of miR-130a in rat BASMCs was measured by real-time PCR. After knockdown of miR-130a with inhibitor in the BASMCs, the cell viability, cell cycle distribution and apoptosis were detected by CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry. The expression of cell cycle- and apoptosis-related molecules, such as cyclin D1, cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2), p21, Bcl-2 and cleaved caspase-3/caspase-3 at protein levels was determined by Western blot. The growth arrest-specific homeobox protein ( Gax) expression at mRNA and protein levels was determined by real-time PCR and Western blot. RESULTS:Angioten-sionⅡ (AngⅡ) up-regulated the expression of miR-130a and down-regulated the expression of Gax (P<0. 05). Transfec-tion with miR-130a inhibitor partly reversed the increase in AngⅡ-induced cell viability and promoted the Gax expression. Furthermore, the early cell apoptotic rate was significantly increased after down-regulation of miR-130a (P<0.05), and the protein levels of cyclin D1, CDK2, Bcl-2 and p-Rb were significantly decreased, accompanied with the up-regulation of p21 and cleaved caspase-3 (P<0.05). CONCLUSION:Down-regulation of miR-130a restrains the viability and pro-motes the apoptosis of BASMCs by promoting Gax expression and regulating cell cycle- and apoptosis-related molecules, suggesting that miR-130a may be a potential therapeutic target of brain vascular remodeling during hypertension.