Relationship Of NF-κB And Its Related Factors To Coronary Atherosclerotic Plaque Stabilization

Background and PurposeRupture of unstable coronary atherosclerotic plaque and succeeding thrombosis are mainly responsible for acute coronary syndrome . It is believed that excessive inflammation cells is an important character of unstable plaques. At present, several important transcription factors and chemokines ,such as PPAR γ , NF- κ B , MCP-1 and M1P-1 α have been found in atherosclerotic region and it has been proved that there exist relations among them. However,their effects on plaque stability are rarely studied. The present study was designed to detect the difference of the above molecules' expression between unstable plaque and stable plaque , and make it more clear how they act on plaque stability. Materials and methodsSpecimens of coronary arteries were obtained at autopsy from 51 patients with acute coronary syndromes and stable angina. Plaque morphology was evaluated by using hematoxylin and eosin stained slides. Then, 861 tissue blocks of late-stage lesions were classified into two groups as either unstable(n=122),in which the plaque characterized by a large extracellular lipid core, (more than 40% of the plaque area)or stable(n=739),in which the lipid core was less than 40% of the plaque area.40 blocks selected randomly from each group were immunohistochemically investigated by using monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies against PPAR γ , NF- κ B, MCP-1 , MIP-1 α , macrophage(CD68) and smooth muscle cells(SMA). Next, computeraided planimeter was used in quantitative analysis.