Research of the phenotypic switch marker in vessels smooth muscle cell

Vascular smooth muscle cells have two types of contract phenotype and synthetise phenotype.In different phenotype, the expression of intracellular proteins is different, different markers have important effects on cell proliferation, contraction, and other functions.These proteins with different expression levels can be used as markers for distinguishing cell phenotype.The current contracted markers are: α-actin, Calponin, Desmin, Vimentin.Synthetic markers are: Osteopontin, Epiregulin.In this paper, the contract and synthetic markers are reviewed separately. Key words: Phenotypic switch; Smooth muscle cell; Maker