Pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells from chronically hypoxic neonatal calves retain fetal-like and acquire new growth properties

Growth properties retained and acquired by immature pulmonary artery (PA) smooth muscle cells (SMC) in vivo after chronic exposure to hypoxia and the mechanisms that regulate hypoxia-induced change in proliferative phenotype are not known. We tested the hypothesis that PA SMC from neonatal calves exposed to hypoxia after birth would both retain fetal-like and acquire new growth characteristics and that these changes would be at least partially dependent on protein kinase C (PKC), a key pro-proliferative signal transduction pathway. Like fetal cells, PA SMC from hypoxic calves grew faster in the presence and absence of serum and were more responsive to insulin-like growth factor I and platelet-derived growth factor-BB than control neonatal and adult cells. PA SMC from hypoxic calves also acquired other growth properties (i.e., including increased hypoxic growth after PKC activation) that were new compared with those observed for fetal cells. The proliferative response to hypoxia was first detectable in the neonatal period and was further increased in cells from hypoxic calves. SMC from fetuses and hypoxic calves were more susceptible to the growth-inhibiting effects of PKC antagonists (dihydrosphingosine and calphostin C) than control neonatal and adult cells. To test if the Ca2+-dependent isozymes of PKC were uniquely important in the developmental and acquired growth changes observed, the antagonistic effect of the specific, but isozyme nonselective, PKC inhibitor Ro-31-8220 was then compared with GF-109203X, a structural analog with relative specificity for the Ca2+-dependent isozymes of PKC (alpha and beta in PA SMC). The faster growing PA SMC from bovine fetuses and hypoxia-exposed calves again demonstrated greater growth inhibition in response to both inhibitors. GF-109203X was equipotent to Ro-31-8220, and its antiproliferative effects were shown to not be due to an increase in apoptosis. Phorbol ester-induced PKC downregulation, another inhibitor strategy that selectively depletes bovine PA SMC of PKC-alpha, but not -beta, mimicked the antiproliferative effects of GF-109203X. Whole cellular PKC catalytic activity paralleled the pattern of peptide-induced growth and susceptibility to PKC inhibition. These results suggest that PA SMC from hypoxia-exposed neonatal calves retain enhanced fetal-like proliferative capacity and acquire new growth properties that are at least partially dependent on the Ca2+-regulated isozymes of PKC and in particular PKC-alpha.