Redox control of vascular biology

Abstract

Redox control is lost when the antioxidant defense system cannot remove abnormally high concentrations of signaling molecules, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS). Chronically elevated levels of ROS cause oxidative stress that may eventually lead to cancer and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. In this review, we focus on redox effects in the vascular system. We pay close attention to the subcompartments of the vascular system (endothelium, smooth muscle cell layer) and give an overview of how redox changes influence those different compartments. We also review the core aspects of redox biology, cardiovascular physiology, and pathophysiology. Moreover, the topic-specific knowledgebase DES-RedoxVasc was used to develop two case studies, one focused on endothelial cells and the other on the vascular smooth muscle cells, as a starting point to possibly extend our knowledge of redox control in vascular biology.

Keywords: cardiovascular diseases; cardiovascular system; reactive oxygen species; redox.

Figure 1

Effects of ROS in physiological and pathophysiological conditions

Figure 2

Chemical substances connecting vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and gene ontology (GO) biological functions. Chemical substances from ChEBI are shown with a blue background color and GO biological functions with yellow color. The transparency of the edge indicates the frequency of co‐occurrence of the connected terms. The graph was formed by extracting all ChEBI or GO term co‐occurrences with “vascular associated smooth muscle cell” from the DES‐RedoxVasc KB. The connection between CheBI and GO terms already extracted in the first step was also added. A general filter was applied to the edges to have at least two articles reporting co‐occurrence. The layout of the graph was first force‐directed by the amount of co‐occurrence between two terms, but then manually adjusted for readability of the nodes

Figure 3

DES‐RedoxVasc network illustrating microRNAs that may affect the relationship among “VASCULAR ENDOTHELIAL CELL”, “Oxidative stress response”, and “Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids.” The orange circles denote concepts from the “human microRNAs” dictionary; the green circles denote concepts from the “HFO Ontology (Bioportal) Heart Failure Ontology” dictionary; the blue circles denote concepts from the “Pathways (KEGG, Reactome, UniPathway, Panter)” dictionary; and the red circles denote concepts from the “Human Anatomy” dictionary