Osteopontin expression and its possible functions in the aortic disorders and coronary artery disease

background: osteopontin (opn) has been verified to be closely associated with oncogenesis and remodeling processes. but this cytokine was rarely assessed in the presence of aortopathies, especially acute aortic dissection. the aim of the present study was to evaluate the expressions of opn by way of molecular biological approaches so as to offer a better understanding of the possible mechanisms of the aortopathies. methods: consecutive patients with type a acute aortic dissection (20 patients), aortic aneurysm (nine patients) or coronary artery disease (21 patients) referred to this hospital for surgical operations were enrolled into this study. blood samples of the surgical patients after systematic heparinization, and control fast morning blood samples drawn from 21 young healthy volunteers who had no evidence of any healthy problems were investigated for enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (elisa). the surgical specimens of the aortic tissues collected from the surgical patients during the operations were obtained for quantitative realtime reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rt-pcr) for opn mrna, western blot assay for opn protein, and for immunohistochemical staining of opn. ascending aortic tissues from the autopsies of the healthy individuals dying of accident were obtained as controls of immunohistochemistry. results: by quantitative rt-pcr, the expressions of opn mrna were all upregulated in all three surgical groups. the quantitative results did not reveal any intergroup differences. western blot assay revealed that opn was positive with similar intensities of expressions in all three surgical groups. quantitative western blot analyses of opn expressions did not show any significance between groups. the opn expressions by elisa in the aortic tissue were 3.09311 ± 1.65737, 3.40414 ± 1.15095, and 1.68243 ± 0.31119 pg/mg protein in the aortic dissection, aortic aneurysm, and coronary artery disease groups, respectively. the opn level of the patients