We examined the coronary arteries of 12 fatal KD cases and 13 childhood controls for expression of a set of proteins whose genes were highly up-regulated in the KD coronary artery transcriptome: allograft inflammatory factor 1 (AIF1), interleukin 18 (IL-18), CD74, CD1c, CD20 (MS4A1), Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR-7) and Z-DNA binding protein 1 (ZBP1).
To establish a culture model for human coronary artery endothelial cells (HCAECs), we employed KD patient-origin PBMC culture-conditioned media to induce HCAEC transformation and detected the nuclear activation of NF-κB p65 and intracellular caspase-4 protein concentrations using western blot analysis.
Twelve studies, including four on Behçet's disease (BD), four on Henoch-Schenlein purpura (HSP), three on Kawasaki disease (KD), and one on Wegener's granulomatosis, were available for the meta-analysis.
In patients with acute KD, high serum protein levels of VEGF and Ang-2 were observed compared to patients with convalescent KD and to both controls with and controls without fever.
This study hypothesized that specific VEGF gene polymorphisms and their haplotypes are associated with KD susceptibility and CAL development in Taiwanese children.
For KD child patients, the complication with CAL or not has a close correlation with VEGF, PLT, D-dimer, and inflammatory factor; and VEGF, IL-6, PLT, and D-dimer are the important risk factors for KD complicated with CAL.
A significant association with KD susceptibility was observed with 5 SNPs in the ANGPT1 gene (most significantly associated SNP +265037 C>T; Pcombined=2.3×10(-7) ) and 2 SNPs in VEGFA (most significantly associated SNP rs3025039; Pcombined=2.5×10(-4) ).
We found that PAI-1 expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes was significantly higher in patients with KD than in control individuals (p < 0.0001), while VDR expression was significantly lower in KD patients than in control individuals (p < 0.0001).
An immunohistochemical analysis of the KD aneurysm using anti-CD31, anti-endothelial nitric oxide synthetase (eNOS), anti-vascular adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), and anti-monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) showed vascular endothelium CD31 staining, decreased staining of eNOS and strong staining of MCP-1 and VCAM-1. cDNA microarray gene expression profiling revealed increased MCP-1 expression in the KD aneurysm, a finding confirmed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction.