Chronic arthritis aggravates vascular lesions in rabbits with atherosclerosis: A novel model of atherosclerosis associated with chronic inflammation

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Abstract
Objective: To determine whether systemic inflammation induced by chronic antigen‐induced arthritis (AIA) accelerates vascular lesions in rabbits with atherosclerosis.Methods: Two models of atherosclerosis and chronic AIA were combined. Atherosclerosis was induced by coupling a hyperlipemic diet with an endothelial lesion at the femoral arteries, while chronic AIA was induced by ovalbumin injection. Markers in sera and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) as well as vessels and synovial membranes from the rabbits with the double phenotype (both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis) were compared with those from rabbits with each disease alone.Results: Serum levels of interleukin‐6, C‐reactive protein, and prostaglandin E2 increased in rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis as compared with healthy animals or animals with either chronic AIA alone or atherosclerosis alone. NF‐κB binding and CCL2 and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX‐2) expression were higher in PBMCs from rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis than in PBMCs from healthy rabbits. The intima‐media thickness ratio of femoral arteries was equally increased in rabbits with atherosclerosis alone and in rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis, but the latter group showed a higher level of macrophage infiltration. Femoral CCL2 and COX‐2 expression was increased in rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis as compared with rabbits with atherosclerosis alone. In the aortas, vascular lesions were found in 27% of rabbits with atherosclerosis alone and in 60% of rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis. Rabbits with both chronic AIA and atherosclerosis exhibited more severe synovitis and higher synovial expression of CCL2 than did rabbits with chronic AIA alone.Conclusion: The onset of chronic AIA in animals with atherosclerosis resulted in the local and systemic up‐regulation of mediators of tissue inflammation and plaque instability associated with a higher incidence of aortic lesions. This model could represent a novel approach to the study of inflammation‐associated atherosclerosis.

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