Influence of shear stress magnitude and direction on atherosclerotic plaque composition
File(s)Pedrigi RM, et al. Open Science 2016.pdf (780.64 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The precise flow characteristics that promote different atherosclerotic plaque types remain unclear. We previously developed a blood flow-modifying cuff for ApoE(-/-) mice that induces the development of advanced plaques with vulnerable and stable features upstream and downstream of the cuff, respectively. Herein, we sought to test the hypothesis that changes in flow magnitude promote formation of the upstream (vulnerable) plaque, whereas altered flow direction is important for development of the downstream (stable) plaque. We instrumented ApoE(-/-) mice (n = 7) with a cuff around the left carotid artery and imaged them with micro-CT (39.6 µm resolution) eight to nine weeks after cuff placement. Computational fluid dynamics was then performed to compute six metrics that describe different aspects of atherogenic flow in terms of wall shear stress magnitude and/or direction. In a subset of four imaged animals, we performed histology to confirm the presence of advanced plaques and measure plaque length in each segment. Relative to the control artery, the region upstream of the cuff exhibited changes in shear stress magnitude only (p < 0.05), whereas the region downstream of the cuff exhibited changes in shear stress magnitude and direction (p < 0.05). These data suggest that shear stress magnitude contributes to the formation of advanced plaques with a vulnerable phenotype, whereas variations in both magnitude and direction promote the formation of plaques with stable features.
Date Issued
2016-10-19
Date Acceptance
2016-09-19
Citation
Royal Society Open Science, 2016, 3
ISSN
2054-5703
Publisher
Royal Society, The
Journal / Book Title
Royal Society Open Science
Volume
3
Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Sponsor
British Heart Foundation
CHUV
British Heart Foundation
Identifier
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27853578
PII: rsos160588
Grant Number
RG/11/13/29055
CRS113/141811/1
PG/15/49/31595
Subjects
atherosclerosis
biomechanics
endothelial cell
haemodynamics
micro-computed tomography
thin cap fibroatheroma
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
160588