Tài liệu Báo cáo y học: "Effects of Losartan on expression of connexins at the early stage of atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is a slow and complicated process. Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation is one of the important features of atherosclerosis. The gap junction (GJ) and connexin (Cx) between cells play crucial roles in the VSMC disintegration and proliferation (1). At present, Cx40, Cx43 and Cx37 have been identified in the VSMCs (2). A variety of in vitro and in vivo experiments have proved that GJ may be involved in the injury or disease induced activation of vessel wall cells. It is indi-that the expression of Cx43 in the smooth muscle cells was markedly elevated at the early stage of coronary atherosclerosis (3). Recently, evidence showed the expression of Cx40 could also be pro-foundly increased in the early phase of artery damage. Angiotensin II (Ang II) is an effective vasoactive peptide, and has been proved to affect the process of atherosclerosis. The regulation process mediated through G-protein-coupled receptors AT1 and AT2 (mostly through AT1 receptor) can also be blocked by specific receptor antagonist (4).