FIGURE 3.

Vascular smooth muscle cell phenotypic switching. vSMC phenotypic switching can be induced by inflammatory cell infiltration, oxidative stress, mechanical wall stress or vSMC detachment from the ECM caused by ECM degradation. The switch from contractile to synthetic vSMC phenotype results in decreased expression of smooth muscle 22 alpha, alpha smooth muscle actin, smooth muscle myosin heavy chain 2, smoothelin, calponin and vimentin are decreased, while osteopontin is upregulated. Abbreviations and symbols: ECM, extracellular matrix; vSMC, vascular smooth muscle cell; ↓, Decreased expression; ↑, Increased expression. Elements were modified from Servier Medical Art, licensed under a Creative Common Attribution 3.0 Generic License. https://smart.servier.com/; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/