Effects of ezetimibe added to on-going statin therapy on the lipid profile of hypercholesterolemic patients with diabetes mellitus or metabolic syndrome.

Objective: To conduct a post-hoc assessment of the lipid-modifying effects of adding the cholesterol absorption inhibitor, ezetimibe, to on-going statin therapy in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) or metabolic syndrome (MetS).

Research Design And Methods: This was a post-hoc analysis of data from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to evaluate the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)-lowering efficacy and safety of adding ezetimibe 10 mg/day versus placebo to ongoing, open-label statin treatment for 8 weeks in hypercholesterolemic patients. Qualifying LDL-C levels and target LDL-C goals were based on National Cholesterol Education Program risk categories.

Polarised secretion of cytokines in primary human microvascular endothelial cells is not dependent on N-linked glycosylation.

Human microvascular endothelial cells (HMVEC) grow in monolayers on Transwell filters and restrict permeability between the apical and basolateral media. We show that these cell monolayers are capable of sorting labelled endogenous proteins, including chemokines, growth factors and cytokines, to either the apical or basolateral media. IL-8 and GMCSF were secreted predominantly into the apical medium, whereas MIC-1 was secreted into the basolateral medium.

Role of the macrophage galactose lectin in the uptake of desialylated LDL.

Desialylated low density lipoprotein (LDL) is rapidly taken up and accumulated by both peripheral blood monocytes and cells isolated from human arterial intima consisting predominantly of smooth muscle cells. It is shown that thioglycollate (TG)-elicited mouse macrophages and mouse peritoneal macrophages stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) show increased expression of a membrane-bound, galactose-specific lectin that could be responsible for this uptake. In LPS-stimulated macrophages accumulation of desialylated LDL is increased ca.