Role of microparticles in endothelial dysfunction and arterial hypertension

Abstract

Microparticles are small cell vesicles that can be released by almost all eukaryotic cells during cellular stress and cell activation. Within the last 1-2 decades it has been shown that microparticles are useful blood surrogate markers for different pathological conditions, such as vascular inflammation, coagulation and tumour diseases. Several studies have investigated the abundance of microparticles of different cellular origins in multiple cardiovascular diseases. It thereby has been shown that microparticles released by platelets, leukocytes and endothelial cells can be found in conditions of endothelial dysfunction, acute and chronic vascular inflammation and hypercoagulation. In addition to their function as surrogate markers, several studies indicate that circulating microparticles can fuse with distinct target cells, such as endothelial cells or leukocyte, and thereby deliver cellular components of their parental cells to the target cells. Hence, microparticles are a novel entity of circulating, paracrine, biological vectors which can influence the phenotype, the function and presumably even the transcriptome of their target cells.

This review article aims to give a brief overview about the microparticle biology with a focus on endothelial activation and arterial hypertension. More detailed information about the role of microparticles in pathophysiology and disease can be found in already published work.

Keywords: Microparticles; Arterial hypertension; Endothelial dysfunction; Biological vectors; Inflammation

Core tip: Microparticles are small cell vesicles which can be released from many cells (e.g., endothelial cells, platelets, leukocytes) into circulation and that can be quantified with flow cytometry. Several studies have shown that specific microparticles subtypes are increased in conditions enhanced vascular inflammation and coagulation. Thereby, microparticles have become surrogate markers, which can be used to assess for example leukocyte and endothelial cell activation. Additionally, by fusion with other cells, microparticles transfer cellular components of their parental cells to their target cells, which often results in altered function of the target cells.