With a new $11.3 million Program Project grant from the National Institutes of Health, experts from the Vascular Biology Center at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University are working to better understand the underlying mechanisms of cardiovascular disease. "Blood vessels are critical for the transport of oxygen, nutrients, and immune cells and when they don't function properly it not only impacts the function of the heart, but other organs such as the lung, eye, brain and even our muscles.
A key regulator of blood vessel function is a thin layer of cells lining the inside of all blood vessels, called the endothelium", explains co-program director Tohru Fukai, MD/PhD. Those endothelial cells and finding ways to fix them when they become dysfunction is a critical focus of this new five-year grant. Normally, endothelial cells form a tightly regulated barrier, reduce inflammation and help blood vessels to relax, allowing blood to flow.
But in cardiovascular disease, when they begin to malfunction, they can't maintain that barrier, which leads to increased inflammation and constriction of blood vessels. That results in increased blood pressure, decreased blood flow and limited organ function. A key problem contributing to endothelial cell dysfunction is the loss of " redox balance" between harmful molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS) and helpful molecules like nitric oxide (NO).
Too much ROS and not enough NO underlies many cardiovascular diseases. To date, .