3.6 | WISP-1 promotes the proliferation and inhibits apoptosis of LF fibroblasts
Previous studies suggested that WISP-1 is highly implicated in the biological processe of affecting the proliferation and migration of fibroblasts (Sharma et al., 2010; Scotton et al., 2009; Ono et al., 2018). However, many questions remain about the precise ways in which WISP-1 regulate the LF fibroblasts and subsequently this biological process. In order to detailed mechanism of WISP-1 on fibrogenesis, we constructed LF cell lines with the over-expression or knockdown of WISP-1 (Fig. 6A). Clone formation revealed that LF cells over-expressing WISP-1 significantly increased fibroblast proliferation. By contrast, the WISP-1 knockdown inhibited the proliferation of LF fibroblasts (Fig. 6B). Furthermore, flow cytometry showed that WISP-1 promoted cell proliferation by improving the G0/G1 phase transition of LF fibroblasts. Briefly, the percentage of G0/G1 phase of LF cells with silenced WISP-1 were higher than that in the control group. Moreover, LF cells overexpressing WISP-1 exhibited a lower percentage of G0/G1 phase as compared with the control group (Fig. 6C). Meanwhile, flow cytometry analysis showed that WISP-1 inhibited LF cell apoptosis. Briefly, the apoptosis rate in WISP-1 over-expressing LF cells was lower than that of the control group, whereas the silencing of WISP-1 leaded to a much higher apoptosis rate as compared to the control group (Fig. 6D). Overall, these data suggested that WISP-1 enhanced LF fibroblast viability by promoting the cell proliferation and inhibiting apoptosis.