I wonder if there is any evidence that smooth muscle cells in arterial media are not distributed uniformly across the thickness. On one hand it would be logical to have more SMCs closer to the lumen since there would be more oxygen for them plus generally, density of fibroblasts in adventitia is much lower than density of SMCs in media (so it is probably not easy to live far away from lumen). On the other hand my observations on pig thoracic aorta does not confirm that. I am not interested in pathological media, I would like to understand the structure of healthy arterial media first.
As I understand some vascular beds have longitudinal as well as concentrical SMCs layers, I wouldn't expect them to be homogeneously distributed (at least not obviously). Maybe thats not the case of pig aorta.
Try this one. It's incredibly interesting and may give you some hints despite non exactly what you asked.
Phenotypic heterogeneity is an evolutionarily conserved feature of the endothelium.
Yano K, Gale D, Massberg S, Cheruvu PK, Monahan-Earley R, Morgan ES, Haig D, von Andrian UH, Dvorak AM, Aird WC.
Blood. 2007 Jan 15;109(2):613-5. Epub 2006 Sep 21.
Hi, Arterial smooh muscle cells have always interested me since we showed they were stimulated to divide by ldl in Chicago.(Fischer-Dzoga,Wissler & Fraser (1976) Stimulation of...rabbit & monkey aortic SMC..Exp.Mol. Path.24,346-359. Daria Haust then was the champion of SMC & atherosclerosis. Then the Australian Campbell husband & wife ( ? Julie) team came along with a great lot of experiments showing SMC in plaques were monoclonal (glucose 6 phosphate dehtdrogenase Afro-American women), I am ageing, not very digital, but that might be a historic early one. Good hunting. Robin Fraser.
Seymore Galgov of Universty of Chicago was a whiz on the elastic lamellae in aortas, & oxegen & nurishment from lumen (abdominal aorta) & adventitial vasa vasorum (thoracic) so explaining Atheromatous abdominal aortic aneurysms & mycotic & syphylitic thoracic aortic aneurysms. Again hope you can find him (1970s) Robin Fraser..
Consult a paper we published in The European Journal of Pharmacology in 1970 on "The heterogeneity of vascular smooth muscle in the aorta"(Altura & Altura)
Hi, thank everybody for their suggestions. I found very interesting the fact that most of recommended papers is very old (according to my time scale:-). It will take me some time to obtain those papers. Meanwhile I added a picture of what I see in my slices (stained by Picrosirius Red). Top image comes from slice 200um away from lumen, next one is 500um away from lumen, next one 1000um away (close to media adventitia interface) and the bottom one is 1300um away and it is an adventitia. As I said it is striking that number of cells increase with increasing depth and I see this regularly in all of my slices so I am looking for a paper where this observation was declared.
I can't tell you if there's any evidence to answer your question, but this may be of interest: In humans inter-arm differences in blood pressure (IAD) are associated cross sectionally with peripheral vascular disease, cerebrovascular disease and, in diabetes, renal disease. Prospectively differences are associated with increased cardiovascular and all cause mortality. the traditional explanation for this is that differences are caused by areas of discrete arterial disease (stenosis) but there isn't much direct evidence to support that except for large pressure differences in people with established vascular disease. We and others are starting to develop evidence of an association of IAD with indices of increased arterial stiffness, hinting at more diffuse changes. Stiffening due to loss of elasticity is an early step in the pathology of hypertension, so it would be really interesting to know if the non-uniform histological changes that you describe are seen in healthy individuals (and animals) or in subjects with hypertension or arterial disease as well. Can you throw any light on that?
More info in: Association of a difference in systolic blood pressure between arms with vascular disease and mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Clark CE, Taylor RS, Shore AC, Ukoumunne OC, Campbell JL
Lancet 2012; 379 (9819): 905-914
As above - on untrastructaral studies with TEM VSMC lie beneath the EC as well as the classic medial position.
In health they will,be quiescent but with injury the vSMC will change phenotypically and migrate.
Good reviews of this by Timmy Lee and Prabir Roy Chaudhary
Well so far I have read all the suggested papers and did not find anything. So I guess I will try to create some paper about it.
Christian E. Clark: All my observations are related to healthy 10-12months old pigs. We took the aortas (n=18) from the local slaughterhouse so those pigs did not get any special treatment.
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