ARTERIAL STIFFENING ACROSS MULTIPLE LENGTH SCALES

DOI

10.1016/j.artres.2013.10.383How to use a DOI?

Abstract

It is well established that aortic stiffness increases with age, and as a result of a number of risk factors including diabetes. Most quantitative measurements of arterial stiffness involve the use of in vivo techniques such as pulse wave velocity or ex vivo techniques such as tensile testing. However, the aorta has a complicated and intricate structure, governed by the properties and composition of the microstructural components of the vessel wall. Hence, these methods provide an average macroscopic response of the material properties and little is known about the effects of ageing and disease on individual components of the aorta.

We present data obtained with novel materials science techniques that allow us to localise mechanical property changes at the microstructural and molecular scale. The scanning acoustic microscope (SAM), when operated at frequencies close to 1 GHz, can provide quantitative measurements of acoustic wave speed (related to tissue stiffness) with a spatial resolution around 1 μm. We have employed SAM to examine changes in the aorta due to ageing, diabetes and Cardiotrophin-1 treatment using animal models. In each case, the inter-lamellar regions of the media have been found to be a key determinant of the overall mechanical and structural properties of the aorta. At the molecular level, we examine the role of fibrillin microfibrils on aorta properties using atomic force microscopy (AFM). These data are compared with the in vivo and macroscopic response of the vessel.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license.

TY  - JOUR
AU  - Riaz Akhtar
PY  - 2013
DA  - 2013/11/11
TI  - ARTERIAL STIFFENING ACROSS MULTIPLE LENGTH SCALES
JO  - Artery Research
SP  - 109
EP  - 109
VL  - 7
IS  - 3-4
SN  - 1876-4401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artres.2013.10.383
DO  - 10.1016/j.artres.2013.10.383
ID  - Akhtar2013
ER  -