The study of VCAM-1 expression in experimental atherogenesis

Charles University in Prague Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Department of Biological and Medical Sciences Candidate: Veronika Mertlíková Supervisor: Doc. PharmDr. Petr Nachtigal Ph.D. Title of diploma thesis: The study of VCAM-1 expression in experimental atherogenesis. The aim of the thesis is to describe the expression of VCAM-1 in the vessel wall of normocholesterolemic C57BL/6J mice, which were fed standard laboratory diet, and hypercholesterolemic apoE-deficient mice. As an experimental model normocholesterolemic C57BL/6J male mice and apoE-deficient mice at the age of 6 weeks were used. The C57BL/6J male mice were fed standard laboratory diet and apoE-deficient mice were fed cholesterol diet for 8 weeks. After this procedure a biochemical analysis of blood and immunohistochemical analysis of segments taken from aortic sinus and aortal arch were made. In comparison with the control C57BL/6J mice a large level of cholesterol was found in the blood of the apoE-deficient mice. Atherosclerotic lesions are thus generated only by the hypercholesterolemic mice. We were monitoring the expression of VCAM-1 in aortas of the normocholesterolemic C57BL/6J mice without atherosclerotic lesions by immunohistochemical methods, and the same methods were used for monitoring of the areas with and without..