Surgical trauma occurs to blood vessels such as the human saphenous vein (HSV) when it is harvested from the lower extremity and transplanted into the arterial circulation as an arterial bypass graft. This project will determine the molecular mediators that lead to decreased function of HSV and blood vessels after surgical injury. Since ?the response to injury? has been implicated in modulating vein graft failure, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of surgical trauma would decrease myocardial infarction, re-do operations and limb loss associated with vein graft failure. This work will also provide new insights in pathologic surgical injury with potential extensions to other applications such as vascular injury during angioplasty, transplantation, and trauma.
Surgery causes trauma to tissues. For example, harvest of human saphenous vein for use as a vascular conduit leads to injury to the vessel. This proposal will use a model of surgical trauma to blood vessels to examine the molecular mediators of surgical trauma and the mechanisms by which trauma leads to impaired function. This will lead to new insights in our understanding of surgical injury to blood vessels, the vascular response to that injury, and new modalities to prevent and treat surgical vascular injury.
| Guth, Christy M; Luo, Weifung; Jolayemi, Olukemi et al. (2017) Adenosine triphosphate as a molecular mediator of the vascular response to injury. J Surg Res 216:80-86 |
