Viscoelastic Properties Of Phagocytes Of Arteriosclerotic Origin

Cardiovascular diseases rank the first in the 3 diseases that threaten man's health (namely, cardiovascular diseases, cancer and infectious diseases). Arteriosclerosis is a major pathological foundation of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, the treatment and prevention of arteriosclerosis play important roles in the improvement of human health. However, the mechanism of atherogenesis is still not very clear. To reach a better understanding of the process of atherogenesis, this thesis using an arteriosclerosis model of rabbits investigated the viscoelastic properties of phagocytes of arteriosclerotic origin in different phases during the arteriosclerosis development.Phagocytes were obtained from both healthy and arteriosclerotic rabbits, the viscoelasticity of those cells was studied using a micropipette aspiration technique. The acquired data were then analyzed with a statistics software. The results are presented as follows:(1) When comparing the mechanical properties of the monocytes from the blood of healthy rabbits with macrophages from the arterial wall of the rabbits, significant differences in viscoelasticity were found between the two kinds of cells. In other words, significant alterations occurred in terms of mechanical property (viscosity and elasticity) when monocytes got into the arterial wall and matured into macrophages. The experimental results indicated that the mobility and deformability of the marcophages matured from monocytes decreased, and their rigidity increased.(2) When comparing the mechanical properties of the macrophages from the arterial wall of healthy rabbits with the foam-cells from the arterial wall of arteriosclerosis rabbits, while the viscous properties of the two kinds of cells had no significant difference, there existed a remarkable difference in the property of elasticity between the macrophages from healthy rabbits and the foam-cells from arteriosclerotic ones, indicating that at the initial stage of arteriosclerosis formation, when macrophages matured into foam-cells, they lost their elasticity further and became more rigid.In conclusion, the experimental results revealed that prior to the formation of arteriosclerosis, monocytes would loss their mobility and deformability when they penetrated into the arterial wall and matured into marcophages in the intima. At the initial stage of arteriosclerosis formation, the mobility and deformability of the...