Homozygous Factor V Leiden Thrombophilia in a Patient With Histologically Confirmed Thromboangiitis Obliterans

Recent Updates and Advances in Winiwarter-Buerger Disease (Thromboangiitis Obliterans): Biomolecular Mechanisms, Diagnostics and Clinical Consequences

Thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) or Buerger’s disease is a segmental inflammatory, thrombotic occlusive peripheral vascular disease with unknown aetiology that usually involves the medium and small-sized vessels of young male smokers. Due to its unknown aetiology and similarities with atherosclerosis and vasculitis, TAO diagnosis is still challenging. We aimed to review the status of biomolecular and laboratory para-clinical markers in TAO compared to atherosclerosis and vasculitis. We reported that, although some biomarkers might be common in TAO, atherosclerosis, and vasculitis, each disease occurs through a different pathway and, to our knowledge, there is no specific and definitive marker for differentiating TAO from atherosclerosis or vasculitis. Our review highlighted that pro-inflammatory and cell-mediated immunity cytokines, IL-33, HMGB1, neopterin, MMPs, ICAM1, complement components, fibrinogen, oxidative stress, NO levels, eNOS polymorphism, adrenalin and noradrenalin, lead, cadmium, and homocysteine are common markers. Nitric oxide, MPV, TLRs, MDA, ox-LDL, sST2, antioxidant system, autoantibodies, and type of infection are differential markers, whereas platelet and leukocyte count, haemoglobin, lipid profile, CRP, ESR, FBS, creatinine, d-dimer, hypercoagulation activity, as well as protein C and S are controversial markers. Finally, our study proposed diagnostic panels for laboratory differential diagnosis to be considered at first and in more advanced stages.

miR-100 alleviates the inflammatory damage and apoptosis of H2O2-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells via inactivation of Notch signaling by targeting MMP9

OBJECTIVE

Thromboangiitis obliterans is a nonatherosclerotic segmental inflammatory disease, and miR-100 plays an anti-inflammatory role in chronic inflammation. Therefore, we hypothesized that miR-100 might alleviate the inflammatory damage and apoptosis of H₂O₂-induced ECV304 cells and aimed to investigate the relationship between miR-100 and thromboangiitis obliterans and the related molecular mechanism.

METHODS

Cell counting kit-8 was used to detect cell viability, and the expression of inflammatory factors and oxidative stress was measured by ELISA. TUNEL assay was used to detect the apoptosis of human umbilical vein endothelial cells after induction by H₂O₂. Furthermore, the interaction between miR-100 and matrix metalloproteinase-9 was verified by dual-luciferase assay. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and western blot were used to detect the expression of the adhesion factors, apoptosis-related proteins and Notch pathway-related protein.

RESULTS

The results revealed that miR-100 was decreased in H₂O₂-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells. Overexpression of miR-100 attenuated inflammatory response and cell apoptosis in H₂O₂-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells. The overexpression of miR-100 inhibited matrix metalloproteinase-9 expression in H₂O₂-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells. miR-100 inhibited H₂O₂-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell inflammation, oxidative stress, and cell apoptosis via inactivation of Notch signaling by targeting matrix metalloproteinase.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study demonstrated that miR-100 reduced the inflammatory damage and apoptosis of H₂O₂-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells via inactivation of Notch signaling by targeting matrix metalloproteinase. These findings suggested that miR-100 might be a novel therapeutic target for the prevention of thromboangiitis obliterans.