Genetic Regulation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Gene Expression and Atherosclerosis-relevant Phenotypes. Homo sapiens

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are critical in the development of atherosclerosis. We aimed to identify genetic variants associated with gene expression and atherosclerosis-relevant phenotypes in VSMCs isolated from ascending aortas of 151 healthy and ethnically-diverse heart transplant donors. All VSMCs were maintained in Smooth Muscle Cell Basal Medium (SmBM, CC-3181, Lonza) supplemented with Smooth Muscle Medium-2 SingleQuots Kit (SmGM-2, CC-4149, Lonza) (complete media) and subcultured for subsequent experiments. We measured proliferation, migration, and calcification using high throughput cellular phenotyping assays. We also measured transcript abundance using high throughput RNA sequencing. We performed genotyping of the donors using Illumina Multi-Ethnic Global Array.