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Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 11|pp 3768—3784

Myocyte enhancer factor 2A delays vascular endothelial cell senescence by activating the PI3K/p-Akt/SIRT1 pathway

Benrong Liu1, Lin Wang1, Wenyi Jiang1, Yujuan Xiong2, Lihua Pang1, Yun Zhong1, Chongyu Zhang1, Wenchao Ou1, Chaowei Tian3, Xiaohui Chen3, Shi-Ming Liu1
  • 1Guangzhou Institute of Cardiovascular Disease, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Vascular Diseases, State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510260, P. R. China
  • 2Department of Laboratory Medicine, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou 510220, P. R. China
  • 3Department of Emergency, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510260, P. R. China
* Equal contribution
Received: April 16, 2019Accepted: May 31, 2019Published: June 10, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102015

Copyright: Liu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Myocyte enhancer factor 2A (MEF2A) dysfunction is closely related to the occurrence of senile diseases such as cardiocerebrovascular diseases, but the underlying molecular mechanism is unclear. Here, we studied the effects of MEF2A on the senescent phenotype of vascular endothelial cells (VEC) and downstream signaling pathway, and the association between plasma MEF2A levels and coronary artery disease (CAD). Results showed that MEF2A silencing promoted cell senescence and down-regulated PI3K/p-AKT/Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) expression. MEF2A overexpression delayed cell senescence and up-regulated PI3K/p-AKT/SIRT1. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) treatment induced cellular senescence and down-regulated the expression of MEF2A and PI3K/p-AKT/SIRT1. MEF2A overexpression inhibited cellular senescence and the down-regulation of PI3K/p-AKT/SIRT1 induced by H2O2. Further study revealed that MEF2A directly up-regulated the expression of PIK3CA and PIK3CG through MEF2 binding sites in the promoter region. Pearson correlation and logistic regression analysis showed that the plasma level of MEF2A was negatively correlated with CAD, and with age in the controls. These results suggested that MEF2A can directly up-regulate PI3K gene expression, and one of the molecular mechanisms of delaying effect of MEF2A on VEC cell senescence was SIRT1-expression activation through the PI3K/p-Akt pathway. Moreover, the plasma MEF2A levels may be a potential biomarker for CAD risk prediction.