Studies on the protection mechanism of glucocorticoids against the inflammatory injury of vascular endothelial cells / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the protection mechanism of glucocorticoids (GC) against the inflammatory injury of vascular endothelial cells (VEC). Methods An inflammatory injury model of VEC was reproduced by treating the human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) with lipopolysaccharides (LPS) in vitro. The effect of dexamethasone (Dex) on apoptosis of HUVEC and the release of IL-6 and sICAM-1 of HUVEC was observed, and then the effect of RU486 (an antagonist for glucocorticoid receptor) on reversing the effect of Dex was also observed. Results LPS could induce apoptosis of HUVEC, and the apoptosis rate reached 36.7%?3.9%. On the other hand, glucocorticoid (Dex) could obviously inhibit the apoptosis of HUVEC in LPS, and the apoptosis rate was reduced to 13.2%?0.9%. The difference between the apoptosis rate between these two groups was very significant (P