The effect of hypoxia on expression of basic fibroblast growth factor in pulmonary vascular pericytes

To examine whether hypoxia exerts effect on the expression of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) in pulmonary vascular pericytes (PC), cell culture, in situ hybridization with probe of digoxigenin-11-dUTP-labled cDNA, immunocytochemistry and image analysis were employed in this study. The results showed that the expression amount of bFGF mRNA and protein in PC of hypoxia (H) group was 1.31 times (P < 0.01) and 1.17 times (P < 0.01) that of normoxia (N) group respectively. It suggests that hypoxia can directly enhance the expression of bFGF mRNA and protein in PC. Increased expression of bFGF may play an important role in the process of PC proliferation and differentiation of PC into smooth muscle-like cells.