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RBPMS promotes contractile smooth muscle splicing and alters phenotypic behaviour of human embryonic stem cell derived vascular smooth muscle cells.

ABSTRACT: Differentiated Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells (VSMCs) express a unique network of splice isoforms (smooth muscle specific alternative splicing - SM-AS) in functionally critical genes including those comprising the contractile machinery. We previously described RNA Binding Protein Multiple Splicing (RBPMS) as a potent driver of contractile, aortic tissue like SM-AS in VSMCs using rodent models. What is unknown is how RBPMS affects VSMC phenotype and behaviour. Here, we use human embryonic stem cell-derived VSMCs (hES-VSMCs) to dissect the role of RBPMS in SM-AS in human cells and determine the impact on VSMC phenotypic properties. hES-VSMCs are inherently immature and display only partially differentiated SM-AS patterns while RBPMS levels are undetectable endogenously. Hence, we used an over-expression system and found that RBPMS induces SM-AS patterns in hES-VSMCs akin to the contractile tissue VSMC splicing patterns in multiple events. We present in silico and experimental findings that support RBPMS’ splicing activity as mediated through direct binding and via functional cooperativity with splicing factor RBFOX2 on a significant subset of targets. Finally, we demonstrate that RBPMS can alter the motility and the proliferative properties of hES-VSMCs to mimic a more differentiated state. Overall, this study emphasizes a critical splicing regulatory role for RBPMS in human VSMCs and provides evidence of phenotypic modulation by RBPMS.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE242826 | GEO | 2024/12/19

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) dysregulation is a hallmark of vascular disease, including atherosclerosis. In particular, the majority of cells within atherosclerotic lesions are generated from pre-existing VSMCs and a clonal nature has been documented for VSMC-derived cells in multiple disease models. However, the mechanisms underlying the generation of oligoclonal lesions and the phenotype of proliferating VSMCs are unknown.Here we analyse clonal dynamics in multi-color lineage-traced animals over time after vessel injury to understand the cellular mechanisms underlying clonal VSMC expansion in disease.We demonstrate that VSMC proliferation is initiated in a small fraction of VSMCs that initially expand clonally in the medial layer and then migrate to form the oligoclonal neointima. Selective activation of VSMC proliferation also occurs in vitro, suggesting that this is a cell-autonomous feature. Mapping of VSMC trajectories using single-cell RNA-sequencing reveals a continuum of cellular states after injury and suggests that VSMC proliferation initiates in cells that have downregulated the contractile phenotype and show evidence of pronounced phenotypic switching. We show that proliferation is associated with induced expression of stem cell antigen 1 (SCA1) and the expression signature previously identified in SCA1+ VSMCs in healthy arteries. A remarkably increased proliferation of SCA1+ VSMCs, directly validated in functional assays, indicates that SCA1+ VSMCs act as "first responders" in vascular injury. Early atherosclerotic lesions also had clonal VSMC contribution and we show that the proliferation-associated injury response is conserved in plaque VSMCs, extending these findings to atherosclerosis. Finally, we identify VSMCs in healthy human arteries that correspond to the SCA1+ state in mouse VSMCs and show that genes identified as differentially expressed in this human VSMC subpopulation are enriched for genes showing genetic association with cardiovascular disease. We show that cell-intrinsic, selective VSMC activation drives clonal proliferation after injury and in atherosclerosis. Our study suggests that healthy mouse and human arteries contain VSMCs characterised by expression of disease-associated genes that are predisposed for proliferation. Targeting such "first responder" cells in patients undergoing vascular surgery could effectively prevent injury-associated VSMC activation and neoatherosclerosis.

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RBPMS promotes contractile smooth muscle splicing and alters phenotypic behaviour of human embryonic stem cell derived vascular smooth muscle cells.

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