The study on the shear stress responsive element in endothelial cells

Vascular endothelial cells, by virtue of their unique anatomical position, are constantly exposed to the fluid mechanical forces generated by flowing blood. The fluid forces could influence endothelial cell's gene expression. At a molecular level, fluid shear stress is known to increase or decrease the expression of a wide variety of genes. The shear stress responsive element(SSRE) was proposed after the identification of the first SSRE, the GAGACC sequence identified in the platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) B chain promoter and subsequently identified in other genes whose promoters respond to shear stress. In addition, there are the existence of other positive shear responsive regulatory elements. There is a report on the activation of these promoters in vitro and in vivo and propose an application of these mechanically inducible promoters in the treatment of vascular diseases.