In-stent restenosis after revascularization of myocardium with drug-eluting stents is accompanied by elevated level of blood plasma eosinophil cationic protein

The aim of this study was to assess the involvement of eosinophil cationic protein, a marker of eosinophil activation, in the development of in-stent restenosis after drug-eluting stent implantation. Follow-up angiography at 6 to 12?months was performed in 32 patients who were treated with percutaneous coronary intervention and implantation of sirolimus-eluting stents. Blood plasma levels of eosinophil cationic protein (ECP) and total immunoglobulin E (IgE) were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and the level of C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) by high-sensitivity nephelometry. According to angiography data, in-stent restenosis occurred in 13 patients, while 19 patients did not develop it. There were no differences between the hs-CRP and IgE levels in patients with or without restenosis. In contrast, ECP level was higher in patients with restenosis compared with that in patients without restenosis [17.7?ng/mL (11.2-24.0) vs. 9.0?ng/mL (6.4-12.9), p?= 0.017]. The incidence of in-stent restenoses was 63% in patients with ECP level higher than or equal to 11?ng/mL, and 19% in patients with an ECP level lower than 11?ng/mL (p?= 0.019). These findings suggest that elevated eosinophil activation may play an important role in the pathogenesis of in-stent restenosis after implantation of drug-eluting stents.     

Automatic pathway building in biological association networks

Background  

Scientific literature is a source of the most reliable and comprehensive knowledge about molecular interaction networks. Formalization of this knowledge is necessary for computational analysis and is achieved by automatic fact extraction using various text-mining algorithms. Most of these techniques suffer from high false positive rates and redundancy of the extracted information. The extracted facts form a large network with no pathways defined.     

Circulating stromal osteonectin-positive progenitor cells and stenotic coronary atherosclerosis

The level of circulating stromal progenitor cells carrying osteonectin (ON), a marker of osteogenic differentiation, was evaluated by flow cytometry in blood of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Ninety-nine patients with CAD were included into the study. Coronary angiography of all patients showed critical stenosis of at least 2 coronary arteries or their major branches. The control groups included 8 patients without CAD and 19 healthy volunteers. In control patients, no lesions of the coronary bed were found by angiography. The absence of CAD in the volunteers was confirmed by bicycle stress test. The content of ON-positive cells in blood was examined in various populations of lymphocyte-like cells. It was found that the number of ON+ lymphocyte-like cells with CD41 positivity in blood of patients without coronary stenosis (0.27%+/-0.11%, mean+/-SD) did not differ significantly from corresponding value in healthy volunteers (0.26%+/-0.07%, p=0.94). In CAD patients, the percent of these ON+ cells was 1.01%+/-0.49% and was significantly higher than in blood of healthy volunteers (p<0.0001) and patients without CAD (p<0.0001). High content of ON+ lymphocyte-like cells with CD41 positivity in blood may serve as noninvasive marker of arterial atherosclerosis.