The aberrant expression of Smad6 and TGF-β in obesity linked cardiac disease

H.-M. Niu, C.-L. Liu

Department of Cardiology, The Traffic Hospital of Shandong Province, Jinan, P.R. China. chuanglingliu167@hotmail.com

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• Cardiology

OBJECTIVE: Obesity is a major health problem in modern society because their progression is always associated with many health issues. The major among them is developing the cardiovascular disease because as the obesity prolonged it results with cardiac remodelling and finally results in the dysfunction of the cardiac system. Many genes are associated with developing the obesity-linked cardiac dysfunction and it should be evaluated at different pathological stages of obesity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the present studies, we analyzed the expression pattern of Smad6 and TGF-β using obesity-induced mice model which are ob/ob−/− deficient. The pathology of disease progression in initial and aggressive stage of cardiac dysfunction are studied together with Smad6 and TGF-β expression.

RESULTS: The mice develop initial stages of cardiac dysfunction on 3rd month and advanced stage of cardiac dysfunction on the 6th month. The results with histology show as the dysfunction progress it shows cellular lesions associated with enlarged cells. Immunochemistry with Smad6 represents that its expression positively regulate and repair the initial lesion but it has no role in the aggressive form of cardiac dysfunction and at that stage their expression downregulated. The results with TGF-β show initial upregulation in repairing the damage but in latter stage its expression many fold increases and it takes part in the inflammatory response.

CONCLUSIONS: Overall our results show aberrant expression of Smad6 and TGF-β at different stages of obesity linked cardiac dysfunction.

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