Author(s)

Federico Vozzi¹, Gualtiero Pelosi^1*, Mariarita Puntoni¹, Federica Viglione¹, Silvia Rocchiccioli¹, Claudia Kusmic¹, Fabio Bernini², Paolo Marraccini¹, Maria Giovanna Trivella¹, Oberdan Parodi¹

¹Institute of Clinical Physiology IFC-CNR, Pisa, Italy.
²Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.

It is known that high-cholesterol diet impairs coronary vasodilatation in animal models of athe-rosclerosis irrespective of overt pathology. We evaluated the specific role of LDL and HDL on adenosine-elicited coronary vasodilatation after short time (10 weeks) high-cholesterol diet in pigs. Nineteen pigs on standard (C), atherogenic (HF) and alternate standard or atherogenic diet every other week (IHF) underwent left coronary angiography and flow (CFR) measurement during intracoronary adenosine injection. Total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Apo lipoprotein A-1, IL-6, TNF-α and ICAM-1 were measured and histology of coronary samples was performed. IHF and HF show comparable intimal thickening of lesions, similar cholesterol (598.4 ± 198.2 and 633.2 ± 83.5 mg/dL) and LDL (502.6 ± 193.7 and 576.1 ± 83.2), while HDL is double in IHF group (88.3 ± 6.4 vs 46.4 ± 18.7 p < 0.0001). Vasodilation is reduced in HF (CFR = 1.6 ± 0.2, p < 0.001) as compared to C (2.6 ± 0.4), whilst it is preserved in IHF (2.7 ± 0.4). CFR and HDL values of all hypercholesterolemia cases are positively correlated (r = 0.88, p < 0.001). No relation with cytokines/cell adhesion markers is present. These findings suggest for the first time that elevation of plasma HDL level counteracts LDL related vasodilation impairment during coronary atherogenesis in swine.

CFR, HDL, Hypercholesterolemia, Adenosine

Vozzi, F. , Pelosi, G. , Puntoni, M. , Viglione, F. , Rocchiccioli, S. , Kusmic, C. , Bernini, F. , Marraccini, P. , Trivella, M. and Parodi, O. (2014) HDL-Mediated Protection of Coronary Vasodilator Response to Adenosine in the Hypercholesterolemic Swine. Open Journal of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, 4, 49-61. doi: 10.4236/ojmip.2014.44006.