Transcriptional impact of EGFR activation in human female vascular smooth muscle cells

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) are critical for the vascular tone, but they can also drive the development of vascular diseases when they lose their contractile phenotype and de-differentiate. Previous studies showed that the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) of VSMC is critical for vascular health, but most of the underlying mechanisms by which VSMC-EGFR controls vascular fate have remained unknown. We combined RNA-sequencing and bioinformatics analysis to characterize the effect of EGFR-activation on the transcriptome of human primary VSMC (from different female donors) and to identify potentially affected cellular processes. Our results indicate that the activation of human VSMC-EGFR is sufficient to trigger a phenotypical switch toward a proliferative and inflammatory phenotype. The extent of this effect is nonetheless partly donor-dependent. Our hypothesis-generating study thus provides a first insight into mechanisms that could partly explain variable susceptibilities to vascular diseases in between individuals.