The vasculopathy of hyperglycemia is a common and highly harmful complication of
diabetes mellitus, and is characterized by abnormal accumulation of
vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) in vascular intima and media due to excessive proliferation and reduction of
apoptosis of the VSMCs. This proliferation and
apoptosis imbalance of VSMCs is considered to be likely to play a key role in the
pathogenesis and progression of
diabetic vascular complications. According to the invention, the cyclopeptide COX52-69 is found to be capable of directly inhibiting proliferation and migration of
smooth muscle cells induced by
high glucose. The evidence of the cyclopeptide is that in CCK8
cell proliferation detection and
cell migration experiments, we find that the cyclopeptide can significantly inhibit abnormal proliferation and migration of high-glucose-induced
smooth muscle cells, while the cyclopeptide with the same concentration acts on high-glucose-induced HEK293T cells to perform CCK8
cell proliferation detection. However, the cyclopeptide is found to have no influence on proliferation of HEK293T cells in
high glucose (no promotion or inhibition effect). Therefore, the
peptide has targeting specificity on the inhibition effect on proliferation and migration of high-glucose-induced
smooth muscle cells, and also has certain
biological safety.
High glucose-induced proliferation and migration of smooth
muscle cells are main causes of diabetic vasculopathy, so that the
peptide can be used for complications caused by the diabetic vasculopathy. A new hope is brought to intervention of diabetic complications.