Mechanical unloading contributes to significant cardiovascular deconditioning. Endothelial dysfunction in the sites of microcirculation may be one of the causes of the cardiovascular degeneration induced by unloading, but the detailed mechanism is still unclear. Here, we first demonstrated that mechanical unloading inhibited brain microvascular endothelial cell proliferation and downregulated histone deacetylase 6 (HDAC6) expression. Furthermore, HDAC6 promoted microvascular endothelial cell proliferation and attenuated the inhibition of proliferation caused by clinorotation unloading. To comprehensively identify microRNAs (miRNAs) that are regulated by HDAC6, we analyzed differential miRNA expression in microvascular endothelial cells after transfection with HDAC6 siRNA and selected miR-155-5p, which was the miRNA with the most significantly increased expression. The ectopic expression of miR-155-5p inhibited microvascular endothelial cell proliferation and directly downregulated Ras homolog enriched in brain (RHEB) expression. Moreover, RHEB expression was downregulated under mechanical unloading and was essential for the miR-155-5p-mediated promotion of microvascular endothelial cell proliferation. Taken together, these results are the first to elucidate the role of HDAC6 in unloading-induced cell growth inhibition through the miR-155-5p/RHEB axis, suggesting that the HDAC6/miR-155-5p/RHEB pathway is a specific target for the preventative treatment of cardiovascular deconditioning.
Keywords: HDAC6; RHEB; mechanical unloading; miR-155-5p; proliferation.