CAV1 and atherosclerosis: Moreover, Schwencke C et al. [30] showed that the adenoviral overexpression of caveolin-1 inhibits smooth muscle cell proliferation and that the expression of caveolin-1 in vivo is significantly decreased in proliferating vascular smooth cells of human atheroma, suggesting that the loss of antiproliferative control by caveolin-1 plays a pivotal role in vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation during atherosclerosis.