Reduced neointima hyperplasia of vein bypass grafts in intercellular adhesion molecule-1-deficient mice

Recently, we established a new mouse model of vein graft arteriosclerosis through the grafting of vena cava to carotid arteries. In many respects, the morphological features of this murine vascular graft model resemble those of human venous bypass graft disease. With this model, we studied the role of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) in the development of vein graft arteriosclerosis in ICAM-1-deficient mice. Neointimal hyperplasia of vein grafts in ICAM-1 -/- mice was reduced 30% to 50% compared with that of wild-type control animals. Immmunofluorescent analysis revealed that increased ICAM-1 expression was observed on the endothelium and smooth muscle cells (SMCs) of the grafted veins in wild-type, but not ICAM-1 -/-, mice. MAC-1 (CD11b/18)-positive cells that adhered to the surface of vein grafts in ICAM-1 -/- mice were significantly less as identified with en face immunofluorescence, and these positive cells were more abundant in the intimal lesions of vein grafts in wild-type mice. Furthermore, aortic SMCs cultivated from wild-type mice exhibited high ICAM-1 expression in response to tumor necrosis factor-alpha. When tumor necrosis factor-alpha-stimulated SMCs were incubated with mouse spleen leukocytes, the number of cells that adhered to ICAM-1 -/- SMCs was significantly lower than the number that adhered to ICAM-1 +/+ SMCs, which was markedly blocked through pretreatment of leukocytes with the anti-MAC-1 antibody. Taken together, our findings demonstrate that ICAM-1 is critical in the development of venous bypass graft arteriosclerosis, which provides essential information for therapeutic intervention for vein graft disease in patients undergoing bypass surgery.