Effect of rosiglitazone on biological characteristics of hepatic stellate cells and their expression of PDGF

Purpose To observe the influence of rosiglitazone on ultrastructure,proliferation,apoptosis and cell circle of hepatic stellate cells(HSC) in vitro,and to study the effect of rosiglitazone on the expression of α-SMA and PDGF-B in HSC.Methods MTT assay was used to detect the influence of rosiglitazone on the proliferation of HSC,flow cytometry(FCM) was employed to investigate the effect of rosiglitazone on the ratio of apoptosis and the distribution of cell cycle,and the expression levels of α-SMA and PDGF-B in HSC treated by rosiglitazone were semi-quantitatively analyzed by IHC.Transmission electron microscope(TEM) was applied to observe the ultrastructural change of HSC after treatment by rosiglitazone.Results MTT results showed that rosiglitazone could inhibit the proliferation of HSC.Inhibitory rate increased with increasing rosiglitazone concentration in a dose-effect manner,FCM results showed that both apoptosis rate and the percentage of G0/G1 phase increased with increasing rosiglitazone concentration.The increase of apoptosis rate in each group was very significant(P0.01).IHC results showed that: expression of α-SMA and PDGF-B in HSC was decreased with the increase of rosiglitazone concentration,and the expression of both antigens was closely related(r=0.971).TEM results showed that after rosiglitazone treatment(15 μmol/L),growth state HSC was inhibited,and a part of HSC presented the ultrastructural changes of apoptosis.Conclusion Rosiglitazone could inhibit the proliferation and activation of HSC.The mechanism could be related with arresting HSC in the G0/G1 phase,inducing the apoptosis of HSC and decreasing the expression of PDGF in HSC.