Abstract:

To investigate the effects of synthetic phosphorothioate-modified antisense oligodeoxynucleotides(ODN), which is complementary to the first five codens of c-myc mRNA(AS ODN), on proliferation, migration and apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells(SMC), AS ODN were introduced into cultured rat arotic SMCs by lipofectin, observed that antisense ODN inhibited SMC proliferation and migration, and induced SMC apoptosis. These effects were associated with decreased expression of c-myc encoded protein which was shown by western blot. ODN with the same nucleotides but a sense sequence or a mismatched sequence did not show same effects as AS ODN did. The results suggested a potential role of antisense strategies designed to inhibit c-myc expression for prevention of restenosis following angioplasty.

Key words: antisense inhibition, c-myc, smooth muscle cell, proliferation, migration, apoptosis