A spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitor attenuates the proliferation and migration of vascular smooth muscle cells

Background Pathologic vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation and migration after vascular injury promotes the development of occlusive vascular disease. Therefore, an effective chemical agent to suppress aberrant proliferation and migration of VSMCs can be a potential therapeutic modality for occlusive vascular disease such as atherosclerosis and restenosis. To find an anti-proliferative chemical agent for VSMCs, we screened an in-house small molecule library, and the selected small molecule was further validated for its anti-proliferative effect on VSMCs using multiple approaches, such as cell proliferation assays, wound healing assays, transwell migration assays, and ex vivo aortic ring assay.