Atherosclerotic plaque destabilization and rupture leads to acute coronary syndromes which cause serious damage to human health worldwide. However, there is currently a lack of efficient therapeutic methods. Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) has been suggested to be involved in the development of atherosclerotic plaques and serves as a therapeutic target. The present study was performed to d...

After a period of relative senescence in the field of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) research with particular regards to atherosclerosis, the last few years has witnessed a resurgence, with extensive research re-assessing potential molecular mechanisms and pathways that modulate VSMC behaviour within the atherosclerotic-prone vessel wall and the atherosclerotic plaque itself. Attention has ...

Inflammation is a key feature of atherosclerosis and a target for therapy. Statins have potent anti-inflammatory properties but these cannot be fully exploited with oral statin therapy due to low systemic bioavailability. Here we present an injectable reconstituted high-density lipoprotein (rHDL) nanoparticle carrier vehicle that delivers statins to atherosclerotic plaques. We demonstrate the a...

Vulnerable plaques are dangerous atherosclerotic lesions that bear a high risk of complications that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. These plaques are known to be chronically inflamed. The vasa vasorum (VV) are microvessels that nourish vessel walls. Proliferation of VV is part of the "response to injury" phenomenon in the process of plaque formation. Recent evidence has shown strong cor...

Atherosclerotic plaque can cause severe stenosis in the artery lumen. Blood flow through a substantially narrowed artery may have different flow characteristics and produce different forces acting on the plaque surface and artery wall. The disturbed flow and force fields in the lumen may have serious implications on vascular endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells, and circulating blood cells. I...

Thrombus formation on a disrupted atherosclerotic plaque is a key event that leads to atherothrombosis. Because thrombus is induced by chemical or physical injury of normal arteries in most animal models of thrombosis, the mechanisms of thrombogenesis and thrombus growth in atherosclerotic vessels should be investigated in diseased arteries of appropriate models. Pathological findings of human ...

OBJECTIVE Even though ˪-arginine (ARG) derivatives can predict cardiovascular mortality, their role as atherosclerotic biomarkers is unclear. We tested the hypothesis if asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) and the sum of both (DMA) are positively, while ARG and ARG/ADMA ratio are inversely associated with carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) and atheroscleroti...

There are indications that the texture of certain components of atherosclerotic carotid plaques in the common carotid artery (CCA), obtained by high resolution ultrasound imaging, may have additional prognostic implication for the risk of stroke. The objective of this study was to perform texture analysis of the middle component of atherosclerotic carotid plaques in 230 CCA plaque ultrasound im...

BACKGROUND The aim of the proposed study was to conduct a feasibility study using a flat rectangular (3 × 10 mm(2)) transducer operating at 5 MHz for removing atherosclerotic plaque in an in vivo model. The proposed method can be used in the future for treating atherosclerotic plaques in humans. METHODS AND RESULTS The plaque in the rabbits was created using high cholesterol diet for 4 months...

Noninvasive, high-resolution MRI has shown its efficacy in the visualization of carotid atherosclerotic plaque characteristics. MRI is the only noninvasive option for thin plaque cap, active inflammation, fissured/injured plaque and intraplaque hemorrhage, is also useful in monitoring the response after statin therapy, and has the potential to image a coronary plaque and to determine its compos...