Aim to study the role of caveolin 1 in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) cholesterol homeostasis. Method Western blot and RT PCR was performed to evaluate the effects of native low density lipoprotein (n LDL) or oxidized low density lipoprotein (ox LDL) on expression of caveolin 1 in VSMC cellular cholesterol efflux, cholesterol content and lipid droplets of VSMC were determined by using cholesterol detection, HPLC and nile red stain respectively Results The results showed that n LDL (50 mg/L) increased caveolin 1 expression by 60.2%±3.9%, and promoted cholesterol efflux rate to 81.7%±4.3%. However, ox LDL (50 mg/L) downregulated caveolin 1 abundance by 54.7%±5.8% and deduced cholesterol efflux rate to 26.8%±5.1%. In addition, the cholesterol efflux rate also significantly decreased when VSMC harboring caveolin 1 antisence. Caveolin 1 overexpression by transfected Pcl neo cav 1 in VSMC results a dramatically decrease in total cellular cholesterol content and lipid droplets induced by ox LDL (50 mg/L). Conclusions Caveolin 1 mediates cellular cholesterol efflux in vascular smooth muscle cells, which is an important mechanism of regulating cellular cholesterol balance. Dowmregulation caveolin 1 expression is involved in foam cell formation derived from vascular smooth muscle cell induced by ox LDL.