| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 化學工程所 === 93 === Atherosclerosis is generally accepted as a chronic low-grade inflammatory disease with continuous accumulation of macrophages and T lymphocytes in advanced atherosclerotic lesions. The oxidation of low density lipoprotein (oxLDL) is a key early stage in the development of atherosclerosis and the resultant product oxidized LDL has been shown to induce endothelial cells dysfunction and smooth muscle cells proliferation. Recently, plenty of evidence show that the level of C-reactive protein (CRP) in blood is another good predictor of cardiovascular events. Although CRP has been demonstrated to bind to oxidized phosphotidylcholine in oxLDL, little is known about the effect of the oxLDL/CRP complex on the functions of endothelial cells. Here, we investigated the effect of various combinations of LDL (or oxLDL) and CRP on the NO release from endothelial cells. We found that LDL blocks the effect of CRP on reduction of NO release, whereas the complex of oxLDL and CRP exhibits differential effect.Therefore, the correlation between them in vivo maybe cause different influence on vessel and the complex with a molar ratio oxLDL:CRP=4:1 results in a synergic reduction of NO release. In addition, LDL, but not oxLDL, forms a large complex with CRP. We also found that CRP and CRP/oxLDL bind to different receptors.
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