Oxymetazoline enhances epidermal- and platelet-derived growth factor-induced DNA synthesis.

In the present study, the effect of 10(-9) to 10(-6) M epinephrine (alpha- and beta-agonist), norepinephrine (alpha- and beta 1-antagonist) isoproterenol (beta-agonist) salbutamol (beta 2-agonist), phenylephrine (alpha 1-agonist) and oxymetazoline (mainly alpha 2-agonist) on DNA synthesis in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) from rat aorta has been investigated. Our results show that only oxymetazoline induced a moderate dose-dependent elevation of [3H]thymidine incorporation into cell DNA (10(-6) M, 100-300%). Epidermal growth factor (EGF) (50 ng/ml) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-BB induced an elevation of the [3H]thymidine incorporation into cell DNA from 154 +/- 7 (basal value) to 1270 +/- 95 and 1552 +/- 178 cpm/microgram protein (mean +/- S.D., n = 3). Oxymetazoline (10(-6) M) and phenylephrine induced an increase of [3H]thymidine incorporation to 368 +/- 53 and 205 +/- 27 cpm/microgram protein, respectively. In contrast to phenylephrine, oxymetazoline caused an elevation of the PDGF-BB- and EGF-induced [3H]thymidine incorporation to 1561 +/- 143 and 2086 +/- 235 (means S.D., n = 3), respectively. In addition, EGF (1 to 50 ng/ml) induced a dose-dependent increase of [3H]thymidine incorporation from 154 +/- 7 (basal value) to 486 +/- 35 (1 ng/ml), 912 +/- 74 (5 ng/ml), 1019 +/- 40 (25 ng/ml) and 1270 +/- 95 (50 ng/ml) cpm/microgram protein (mean +/- S.D.). In the presence of 10(-6) M oxymetazoline, 1, 5, 25 and 50 ng/ml EGF caused an increase of [3H]thymidine incorporation to 633 +/- 101, 1124 +/- 87, 1231 +/- 101, and 1561 +/- 89 cpm/microgram protein (mean +/- S.D.).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)