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Aortic Stiffness Increases More in the Abdominal Than the Thoracic Aorta in Aging Female Monkeys
Author(s) -
Babici Denis,
Kudej Raymond,
McNulty Tara McNulty,
Zhang Jie,
Vatner Dorothy,
Vatner Stephen
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2019.33.1_supplement.693.15
Subject(s) - elastin , medicine , aorta , abdominal aorta , thoracic aorta , cardiology , anatomy , pathology
Most experimental studies on vascular stiffness in aging females have been conducted in rodents. However, the lifespan of rodents is only 2–3 years, limiting clinical relevance to humans, and they do not go through menopause, making it difficult to translate the data to aging women. The hypothesis of this investigation was that this topic would be more relevant in aging non‐human primates, as their lifespan is over 30 years and they do go through menopause. Accordingly, the goal of this investigation was to compare aortic stiffness in young adult (6±1 years old) and old (24±1 years old) female macaques. An additional unique feature was chronically implanting aortic pressure and diameter transducers to permit the study of direct and continuous measurements of aortic stiffness in conscious monkeys after full recovery from surgery. Another unique feature was to examine aortic stiffness in both the thoracic aorta (TA) and the abdominal aorta (AA). Aortic stiffness (β) was calculated as systolic pressure/diastolic pressure)/aortic strain. Aortic stiffness increased more, p<0.05, in both the TA (49%) and AA (71%) in old vs young female monkeys. The greatest increases in aortic stiffness in the old female monkeys was in the AA, as reflected by a 42% greater increase in the AA than the TA. These differences were confirmed histologically measuring collagen and elastin density and disarray. Whereas collagen density increased and elastin density decreased more in old vs young monkeys, the greatest differences were observed in collagen and elastin disarray. For example, elastin disarray increased more in the AA than the TA, and more in old vs young monkeys, e.g., there was a 48% greater increase, p<0.05, in the TA elastin disarray in old vs young monkeys. Thus, aortic stiffness increases more in old vs young females, with larger increases in the abdominal vs the thoracic aorta, with the mechanism involving changes in collagen and elastin density, but more importantly, increases in collagen and elastin disarray. Support or Funding Information Funding information: NIH R01 HL102472 This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .