Effects of Serum Lipoproteins on the Morphology, Growth, and Metabolism of Arterial Smooth Muscle Cells

Abstract

This paper summarizes some of the work we have been doing during the past five years to study the effects of hyperlipemia upon the growth, morphology and metabolism of arterial medial cells grown from primary explants. Although tissue culture methods have been used for over 70 years they were first introduced in the study of problems related to atherogenesis during the 1950’s. Since this time there have been many studies of both experimentally induced and naturally occurring hyperlipemia and their effects on cultured cells, either of vascular origin or, more often, of established cell-lines unrelated to vascular tissue. Work has been reported on this subject by Rutstein and associates (1964), Robertson (1967), Rothblatt (1969), Baily and Keller (1971) and others. We have chosen to concentrate our efforts on medial cells, since more and more evidence has emphasized their importance in the pathogenesis of mammalian atherosclerosis (Haust et al., 1960; Wissler, 1968; Stary and McMillan, 1970; Thomas et al., 1971).