Honokiol attenuates oxidative stress and vascular calcification in chronic kidney disease via the upregulation of heme oxygenase-1

In this study, we repoort the protective effect of ursolic HONOKIOL (HKL) on vascular calcification in chronic kidney disease. To elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying the anti-vascular calcification effect of HKL, we performed RNA-seq to identify the gene expresion under HKL treatmment. Human vasculr smooth muscle cells were cultured in calcifying medium in the presence or absence of HKL for 48 hours. RNA-seq was performed to determine the downstream target of HKL. The gene expression level was calculated using the Fragment Per Kilobase of Million mapped reads (FPKM) methods. Differential expression was assessed using the DEGseq packages.