title: Aortic atherosclerosis in pigs with heterozygous von Willebrand disease. Comparison with homozygous von Willebrand and normal pigs.
abstract: We have reported that pigs with severe homozygous von Willebrand disease (vWd) are resistant to spontaneous and high fat, high cholesterol, diet-induced atherosclerosis. In this study we report the quantitation of aortic atherosclerotic plaques in three groups of pigs fed with a high fat, high cholesterol (2%) diet from age 3 to 9 months. Nine normal pigs (normal factor VIII antigen, VIII R:AG, and ristocetin co-factor, VIII:RWF) had a mean of 21% atherosclerotic involvement of the distal aortic surface and a 4.5% mean involvement of the entire aorta. Five homozygous vWd pigs (undetected VIII R:AG and VIII:RWF) had a mean of 4.2% atherosclerotic involvement of the distal aortic surface and 1.2% involvement of the entire aorta (p less than 0.01, rank sum test). Five heterozygous vWd pigs (approximately 35% VIII R:AG and VIII:RWF) had a mean of 25% atherosclerotic involvement of the distal aortic surface and 6% involvement of the entire aorta; the results were not significantly different from those in the normal pigs. We concluded that resistance to atherosclerosis is not found in animals with moderate reduction of VIII R:AG and VIII:RWF. This may have implications for humans, since in human vWd both factors are almost always present.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001018:Aortic Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001161:Arteriosclerosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004036:Diet, Atherogenic; D005838:Genotype; D006579:Heterozygote; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D013552:Swine / Q000235:genetics; D014842:von Willebrand Diseases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000503:physiopathology