[Cogan syndrome – when several of our senses are affected].

Cogans syndrome is a rare systemic inflammatory disease characterized by a combination of audiovestibular and ocular symptoms. In some cases, systemic complications occur with vascular inflammation. Aortitis and large vessel vasculitis are the most common forms, but medium-sized and small vessel involvement has also been described.

Profiling of atherosclerotic lesions by gene and tissue microarrays reveals PCSK6 as a novel protease in unstable carotid atherosclerosis.

Objective: Carotid plaque instability is a major cause of ischemic stroke, but detailed knowledge about underlying molecular pathways is still lacking. Here, we evaluated large-scale transcriptomic and protein expression profiling in a biobank of carotid endarterectomies followed by characterization of identified candidates, as a platform for discovery of novel proteins differentially regulated in unstable carotid lesions.

Approach And Results: Genes highly upregulated in symptomatic versus asymptomatic plaques were selected from Affymetrix microarray analyses (n=127 plaques), and tissue microarrays constructed from 34 lesions were assayed for 21 corresponding proteins by immunohistochemistry.

The expression of IGFs and IGF binding proteins in human carotid atherosclerosis, and the possible role of IGF binding protein-1 in the regulation of smooth muscle cell proliferation.

Objective: Proliferation of smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in the fibrous cap of atherosclerotic lesions has been proposed to be important for plaque stability. Since the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system has been implicated to play a role in atherosclerosis and plaque stability, we investigated the expression of members of the IGF system in carotid plaques, in particular IGFBP-1 and its role in the regulation of SMC proliferation.

Methods And Results: Gene expression profiles of the IGF system in 164 human carotid plaques obtained from our Biobank of Karolinska Endarterectomies (BiKE) were analyzed.