Original Article   Open access

International Angiology 2022 Jun 29

DOI: 10.23736/S0392-9590.22.04916-1

Copyright © 2022 THE AUTHOR(s)

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license which allows users to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the manuscript, as long as this is not done for commercial purposes, the user gives appropriate credits to the original author(s) and the source (with a link to the formal publication through the relevant DOI), provides a link to the license and indicates if changes were made.

language: English

Links between macrophages in perivascular adipose tissue and arterial wall: a role in atherosclerosis initiation?

Hana BARTUSKOVA ^{1, 2} ✉, Sona KAUEROVA ¹, Marek PETRAS ³, Rudolf POLEDNE ¹, Jiri FRONEK ⁴, Libor JANOUSEK ⁴, Ivana KRALOVA LESNA ^{1, 5}

¹ Atherosclerosis Research Laboratory, Cardiometabolic Research Division, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic; ² Department of Physiology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; ³ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Third Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic; ⁴ Transplantation Surgery Department, Transplantation Centre, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic; ⁵ Anaesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Unit, Military University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic

BACKGROUND: Inflammation of adipose tissue in relation to atherosclerosis is currently widely studied in patients with advanced disease. However, data regarding polarization of adipose tissue and arterial wall macrophages and their mutual link in the early stages of atherosclerosis are scarce. The main aim of this cross-sectional study was to characterize macrophage subpopulations in arterial wall and adjacent adipose tissue; and to determine links between different subpopulations in a relatively healthy population living kidney donors.
METHODS: The presence of cardiovascular risk factors was established in 68 living kidney donors. Macrophage polarization was analysed by flow cytometry and confirmed by RT-PCR in samples of visceral adipose tissue, renal artery and adjacent perivascular adipose tissue collected during hand-assisted retroperitoneoscopic nephrectomy.
RESULTS: CD14+CD16+CD36high macrophages were found only in adipose tissues and were strongly positively associated with several cardiovascular risk factors. The CD14+CD16+CD36low subpopulation was positively associated with the presence of several cardiovascular risk factors to a lesser extent in all studied tissues. In contrast, the proportion of CD14+CD16-CD36low macrophages was negatively linked to several cardiovascular risk factors and increased in subjects on statin therapy. The proportion of CD14+CD16+CD36low macrophages in perivascular, not visceral adipose tissue was associated with that of both macrophage subtypes in the arterial wall, suggesting a direct link between perivascular adipose tissue and the arterial wall.
CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed the association of three macrophage subtypes in adipose tissue and arterial wall to the studied cardiovascular risk factors. Macrophage polarization in perivascular, but not visceral adipose tissue was linked to macrophage polarization in the arterial wall.

KEY WORDS: Adipose tissue; Macrophages; Atherosclerosis; Cardiovascular risk factors