Atherosclerosis Flashcards
What kind of disease is atherosclerosis?
Progressive
Endothelial dysfunction occurs in what stages of atherogenesis?
Early stages
What do monocytes do when they are recruited into the atherosclerotic lesion?
They differentiate and transform into foam cells
What cytokine is the CANTOS trial targeting?
IL-1b
What causes a platelet plug and the clotting cascade?
Exposure of sub-endothelial layer
What triggers platelet adhesion?
Collagen
What activates the clotting cascade?
Tissue factor
Thickening of the artery wall due to accumulation of fatty material leads to the production of what?
Atheromatous plaque
What areas of the body are affected by atherosclerosis?
Right internal carotid artery
Proximal left renal artery
Proximal left anterior descending coronary artery
What are the clinical symptoms of atherosclerosis?
Coronary artery disease Cerebrovascular atherosclerotic disease Peripheral artery disease Renovascular disease Abdominal aortic aneuysm
What are the risk factors to atherosclerosis?
Diabetes Smoking Gender Dyslipoproteinemia Age Genetic conditions
What does LDL contain?
apoplipoprotein B100
Which is considered protective in atherosclerosis? LDL or HDL?
HDL
What are the early stages of atherosclerosis associated with?
Endothelial cell dysfunction
What does ApoB100 bind to?
Negatively charged extracellular matrix proteoglycans
Activated endothelial cells express what?
Adhesion proteins
Adhesion proteins promote what?
Intimal immune cell infiltration
What happens after immune cells adhere to endothelial cells?
They migrate into the arterial wall
What happens once immune cells are resident in the arterial wall?
Monocytes differentiate into macrophages
What do macrophages produce?
Reactive oxygen species, tissue factor pro-coagulants
What do differentiated macrophages engulf to form foam cells?
Lipoproteins
What are highly regulated in macrophages during differentiation?
Class B scavenger receptors (CD36) and SR-A
What do scavenger receptors do?
Bind and internalise oxidised LDL, helping foam cell formation
What is there a high expression of in atherosclerotic lesions?
CD36
What does NLRP3 inflammasome do?
Cleaves proIL-1B into bioactive IL-1B
What activates the inflammasome?
Cholesterol crystals
What causes necrotic core?
Accumulation of apoptotic cells, debris and cholesterol crystals
The shoulder regions of the necrotic core are heavily infiltrated by what?
T cells
Mast cells
