It is generally accepted that interactions between cells play a
central role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Cell-to-cell communication
via gap junctions has been implicated in the control in
many processes (Dagli and Hernandez-Blazquez, 2007; Hervé et al.,
2007; Yao et al., 2007; Boettner and Van Aelst, 2009). In the present
study, we showed thatimportant atherosclerosis-related processes
such as proliferation (DNA synthesis) and fibrosis (protein synthesis)
and lipidosis (accumulation of intracellular cholesterol)
correlate withthe degree of contact communicationof subendothelial
alpha-smooth muscle actin positive cells (smooth muscle and
pericyte-like cells) of the human aorta. The relation between proliferation
and fibrosis was found to be “bell-shaped”. At the initial
stage of occurrence of contacts between the cells in primary culture,
proliferative activity and protein synthesis increase sharply, reaching
the maximum. However, with further increase in the degree
of contact of communication formation both processes (proliferative
activity and protein synthesis) were found to be suppressed.
Apparently, this relate to a phenomenon of “contact inhibition” in
cultured cells (Rhode and Ellem, 1968; Abercrombie, 1970, 1979)