Aim:
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play an important role in norm and pathology, particularly invascular diseases. The aimof our study was the analysis of the role of EVs of different cellular origin in atherosclerotic plaques maturation/rupture in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) as well as the effect of antiplatelet therapy on EVs composition.
Methods:
We used our newly developed method of flow analysis of the antigenic composition of individual EVs. Briefly, EVs were immune-captured with15 nm magnetic particles (MNP)coupled to monoclonal antibodies against CD31 (predominantly an endothelial marker)orCD63(common marker for EVs of different cellular origin). Captured EVs were stained for either CD63 or CD31, respectively, and for the expression of a platelet marker CD41. We comparedEVs from blood of 15 healthy volunteers with those from blood of 10 patients withACSafter astandard therapythat includes treatment with aspirin and clopidogrel.
Results:
The analysisof MNP-captured EVs stained forCD31, CD63 and CD41 revealed one significant difference between control and ACS individuals:in blood of patients with ACS there was significantly fewerCD31-captured CD63positive EVs expressingCD41, compared to blood of healthy volunteers (Median [Q1;Q4]: 20.9 % [10.01;31.35] vs 42.8 % [29.8;52.1]of all EVs, p0.5).
Conclusions:
With the new method of analysis of antigenic composition of single EVs, we showed that there are significantly fewer EVs co-expressing СD31, CD63 and CD41 markers in blood of patients with ACS in comparison with blood of healthy individuals.The lower amount of EVs carrying the platelet-derived marker CD41 in patients with ACS may reflect the efficiency of standard antiplatelet therapy applied to these individuals.
The lower amount of EVs carrying the platelet-derived marker CD41 in patients with ACS may reflect the efficiency of standard antiplatelet therapy applied to these individuals.