BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

Narrowing down graft stenosis

April 3, 2014 7:00 AM UTC

One of the dominant problems after coronary artery bypass graft surgery is hyperplastic growth inside the transplanted blood vessel that can lead to stenosis. Now, a team at the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has found that this hyperplasia is rooted in a change in the phenotype of endothelial cells lining the transplanted veins and has shown that blocking transforming growth factor-b activity in mice can significantly slow the cellular changes.1

Next, the team will try to replicate the findings using transplant models in pigs and will investigate the transforming growth factor-b (TGFB; TGFb) pathway for other points of intervention that could represent therapeutic targets...