Correlation Between The Expression Of Bone Related Protein And Calcification Under Inflammatory Stress In Atherosclerotic Plaque

Part one Correlation between human aortic atherosclerosis and chronic inflammationObjective: To explore the critical risk factors resulting in human aortic atherosclerosis according to medical records, postmortem examination, aortic specimens and pathological sections.Methods: The clinical and autopsy data were collected and analyzed on 164 patients with aortic atherosclerosis retrospectively, The clinical data was collected on age, gender, past history, treatment, etc. Autopsy data was collected on case introduction, gross specimen and microscope observation, pathologic diagnosis and the cause of death.Results: 120 patients were male and 44 patients were female. The maximum age was 86 years, the minimum age was 27 years and the average age was 56.3 ± 10.3 years. 97 cases died of non-cardiovascular disease, 67 cases died of cardiovascular disease, 17 of them died of rupture of atherosclerotic aortic dissection. Abdominal aorta, ascending aorta and aortic bifurcation was vulnerable to atherosclerosis, and the lesions of abdominal aortic was the most serious. 96 cases had small artery sclerosis, 38 cases had essential hypertension and small artery sclerosis. Hypertension and AAS were highly correlated( P < 0.05). There were 153 patients with AAS, who had one or more chronic inflammatory disease. Chronic pyelonephritis(CPL), chronic gastroenteritis(CGT), chronic esophagitis(CEP) and chronic cholecystitis(CCT), particularly Chronic bronchitis(CB), was highly correlated with AAS(OR values were 19.101, 2.277, 3.706, 3.317 and 3.561, respectively. P < 0.05).Conclusions: Chronic inflammation such as CPL, CGT, CEP and CCT, particularly CB, is the key risk factors for the development of AAS. It is important to early prevent and control of chronic inflammation so that it will delay the further development of AAS and reduce the morbidity and mortality of AAS.Part two Correlation between the expression of bone related protein and calcification on inflammatory stress in atherosclerotic plaqueObjective: To explore correlation between the expression of bone-related proteins and calcification in atherosclerotic plaque by testing the expression of CRP, Mac-3, α-actin and bone-related proteins and the content of Calcium in different pathological stages.Methods: The specimen of human aortic atherosclerosis were divided into the normal group, the lipid fringe group, the fibrous plaque group, the atherosclerotic plaque group and the calcification group according to different pathological atherosclerotic stages. We detected the expression of CRP, Mac-3, α-actin and bone-related proteins by immunohistochemistry, the content of Calcium by Phenom scanning electron microscope and energy spectrometer, and the correlation between the expression of CRP, the expression of bone-related proteins and the content of Calcium in different groups.Results: Osteoblast phenotype cells were derived from vascular smooth muscle cells and macrophage in the atherosclerotic plaque. There was no significant expression of CRP in the normal group and the lipid fringe group. There was the expression of CRP in fibrous plaque group and the expression of CRP was obviously higher in the atherosclerotic plaque group and the calcification group than that in the fibrous plaque group, the difference was statistically significant(P < 0.05). There was no significant expression of bone-related proteins(BMP-2, RUNX-2, OPN and BGP) in the normal group, the lipid fringe group and the fibrous plaque group. The expression of bone-related proteins were obviously higher in the atherosclerotic plaque group and the calcification group than that in the normal group, the difference was statistically significant(P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the content of calcium in the lipid fringe group and the fibrous plaque group compared with the normal group. The content of calcium in the atherosclerotic plaque group was higher than that in the normal group(P < 0.05) and the content of calcium in the calcification group was markedly higher than that in the normal group(P < 0.01). There were positive correlations between the expression of CRP and bone-related proteins and the content of calcium.Conclusions: Inflammatory factors induce the expression of bone-related protein resulting in calcium deposition in the atherosclerotic plaque and inflammation is a risk factor for calcification of atherosclerosis.