Ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) can identify atherosclerotic vulnerable plaque and atorvastatin can stabilize vulnerable plaque by inhibiting the inflammatory response. Using balloon injury in rabbit abdominal aortic endothelial cells and p53 gene transfecting the local plaque, we established an atherosclerotic vulnerable plaque model. In the treatment group, animals were treate...

A therosclerotic plaque rupture and subsequent thrombus formation in the culprit lesion are recognized to be the seminal events in the majority of cases of acute coronary syndrome. Plaque stability is determined by many factors, including lipid deposits, oxidative stress, inflammation, and extracellular matrix degradation. Accumulation of lipid in the atherosclerotic lesion increases mechanical...

Rupture of a vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque causes thrombus formation and precipitates cardiovascular diseases. In addition to the thrombogenic content of a plaque, also the hemodynamic microenvironment plays a major role in thrombus formation. How the altered hemodynamics around a plaque promote pathological thrombus formation is not well understood. In this study, we provide evidence that ...

Chlamydiae were found capable of producing plaques in several cell lines. Mouse fibroblast cells, L-929, proved the most sensitive to infection and yielded plaques of the highest clarity. Assay of chlamydial infectivity by plaque titration was at least as sensitive as egg ld(50) determination. Among chlamydial isolates of avian, mammalian, and human origin, only slow-growing trachoma-inclusion-...

Plaques that form in the brains of Alzheimer patients are made of deposits of the amyloid-beta peptide. We analyze the time evolution of amyloid-beta deposition in immunostained brain slices from transgenic mice. We find that amyloid-beta deposits appear in clusters whose characteristic size increases from 14 microm in 8-month-old mice to 22 microm in 12-month-old mice. We show that the cluster...

Atherosclerosis causes clinical disease through luminal narrowing or by precipitating thrombi that obstruct blood flow to the heart (coronary heart disease), brain (ischemic stroke), or lower extremities (peripheral vascular disease). The most common of these manifestations is coronary heart disease, including stable angina pectoris and the acute coronary syndromes. Atherosclerosis is a lipopro...

Plaque production by 55 rhinoviruses in several lines of HeLa cells is reported. Forty-nine types produced macroscopic plaques under the conditions described previously employing 30 mM MgCl(2) and 30 mug/ml of DEAE-dextran in overlay and M HeLa cells. Basically three kinds of plaques were observed: clear large and intermediate sized plaques and small turbid plaques. Five rhinoviruses produced p...

Urothelial plaques are specialized membrane domains in urothelial superficial (umbrella) cells, composed of highly ordered uroplakin particles. We investigated membrane compartments involved in the formation of urothelial plaques in mouse umbrella cells. The Golgi apparatus did not contain uroplakins organized into plaques. In the post-Golgi region, three distinct membrane compartments containi...