Inflammatory response to acute myocardial infarction augments neointimal hyperplasia after vascular injury in a remote artery.

OBJECTIVE Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is currently the most widely accepted treatment for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). It remains unclear, however, whether post-AMI conditions might exacerbate neointimal hyperplasia and restenosis following PCI. Given that both a medial smooth muscle cell lineage and a bone marrow (BM)-derived hematopoietic stem cell lineage are now thought to contribute to neointima formation, the primary aims of the present study were to determine whether AMI augments neointimal hyperplasia at sites of arterial injury, and whether BM-derived cells contribute to that process. METHODS AND RESULTS We simultaneously generated models of AMI and arterial injury in the same mice, some of which had received BM transplantation. We found that AMI augments neointimal hyperplasia at sites of femoral artery injury by approximately 35% (P<0.05), but that while BM-derived cells contributed to neointimal hyperplasia, they did not contribute to the AMI-related augmentation. Expression of interleukin (IL)-6 mRNA was approximately 7-fold higher in the neointimas of mice subjected to both AMI and arterial injury than in those of mice subjected to arterial injury alone. In addition, we observed increased synthesis of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha within infarcted hearts and TNF-alpha receptor type 1 (TNFR1) within injured arteries. Chronic treatment with pentoxifylline, which mainly inhibits TNF-alpha synthesis, reduced levels of circulating TNF-alpha and attenuated neointimal hyperplasia after AMI. CONCLUSIONS Conditions after AMI could exacerbate postangioplasty restenosis, not by increasing mobilization of BM-derived cells, but by stimulating signaling via TNF-alpha, TNFR1 and IL-6.