View article

Background— Thrombin generation in vivo may be important in regulating atherosclerotic progression. In the present study, we examined for the first time the activity and presence of relevant coagulation proteins in relation to the progression of atherosclerosis.

Methods and Results— Both early and stable advanced atherosclerotic lesions were collected pairwise from each individual (n=27) during autopsy. Tissue homogenates were prepared from both total plaques and isolated plaque layers, in which the activity of factors (F) II, X, and XII and tissue factor was determined. Microarray analysis was implemented to elucidate local messenger RNA synthesis of coagulation proteins. Part of each specimen was paraffin embedded, and histological sections were immunohistochemically stained for multiple coagulation markers with the use of commercial antibodies. Data are expressed as median (interquartile range …