, 2007 and Reichert et al., 2009). The levels of adhesion molecule proteins can be examined in any number of ways, including PCR-based approaches for gene expression, ELISA-based techniques to examine

protein expression and immunocytochemistry to explore protein expression and localization. Endothelial damage has been considered a primary cardiovascular disease-initiating step (Hajjar et al., 1981, Gimbrone et al., 2000, Schulz et al., 2004 and Hadi et al., 2005) and healthy, native endothelial cells are suggested to impart a repair capacity on the damaged endothelium. With this in mind, functional in vitro assays may be used to examine endothelial damage and repair and to assess their potential impact on cardiovascular disease initiation and progression. For example, an endothelial scratch wound model has been used. In this model, a confluent monolayer of endothelial cells is ‘damaged’ click here using a pipette and migration then observed by phase-contrast microscopy ( Acheampong et al., 2009). This PD0332991 model was sensitive to cigarette smoke extracts ( Acheampong et al., 2009 and Fearon et al., 2011) as well as to human sera from smokers (unpublished data), both of which inhibited endothelial migration. This

model can also distinguish between cigarette smoke with different toxicant contents, which demonstrates its potential use as a PREP assessment tool ( Fearon et al., 2011). Similar endothelial migration assays have been developed utilising a Boyden chamber, in which endothelial migration was assessed by monitoring chemotactic cell passage through a micropore membrane ( Michaud et al., 2006). Both of these assays bear relevance to smoking-induced cardiovascular disease and as such are of potential use for PREP assessment. Another functional assay with relevance to cardiovascular Afatinib cost disease is the endothelial angiogenesis assay. Angiogenesis is a process by which new blood vessels are formed

from the existing vasculature, and is not only a pathologic component of atherosclerotic plaque stability but is also a physiological process involved in coronary tissue reperfusion following ischaemic events (Freedman and Isner, 2001 and Al Sabti, 2007). Angiogenesis is further critical to the restoration of the blood supply to the brain, which is beneficial following ischaemic stroke (Chopp et al., 2007). The processes underlying angiogenesis are complex, and involve endothelial proliferation (to provide enough cells to form the new vessel), migration, differentiation and structural re-arrangement (tube formation; Staton et al., 2004). Although no single model can completely re-create the angiogenic process, there are many excellent in vivo and in vitro models which reproduce one or more of the processes involved in angiogenesis.