Authors: Shreya Gupta, Amy Mathias, Jason Lallo, Neha Bhavnani, Priya Raman
Published: 2023-10-13
DOI: 10.1161/res.133.suppl_1.p3033
Source: Full article
Diabetes is a major risk factor for atherosclerosis. Diabetic patients are prone to increased vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) migration and proliferation, hallmarks of VSMC de-differentiation, critical for the evolution of atherosclerosis. Multiple studies, including our earlier work, support the role of thrombospondin-1 (TSP1), a proatherogenic matricellular protein, as a putative link between diabetes and vascular disease. However, molecular mechanism(s) by which TSP1 promotes diabetic vasculopathy are incompletely understood. The goal of this work was to explore whether smooth muscle TSP1 (smTSP1) regulates VSMC phenotypic switch in diabetes. We generated conditional SMC-specific TSP1 knockout (smTSP1