Effect of risk factors and antirheumatic drugs on the proliferation of aortic wall cells

The proliferation of aortic smooth muscle cells (ASMC) of Wistar rats, impaired by risk factors such as arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, atherogenic diet and staphylolysin injections and of normal Wistar rats treated with antirheumatic drugs such as prednisolone and acetylsalicylic acid was investigated. The cells of these animals were cultivated, subcultivated, and in the 2nd subcultures the cell numbers/5 ml medium were counted by means of Coulter Counter, and the cells were incubated with [3H]thymidine and the percentage of labelling in 100 or 1000 counted cells was stated. The effect of risk factors such as LDL and staphylolysin and of antirheumatic drugs such as prednisolone, acetylsalicylic acid, D-penicillamine and chloroquine added to the 2nd subcultures of cultivated ASMC of normal minipigs was investigated by the same methods. The proliferation of cultivated ASMC of rats impaired by risk factors was accelerated. The proliferation of cultivated ASMC of rats treated with antirheumatic drugs was inhibited. The proliferation of ASMC of minipigs in the 2nd subcultures was activated by addition of risk factors and inhibited by addition of antirheumatic drugs. Antirheumatic drugs given to the rats and added to the medium of the 2nd subcultures of ASMC of normal minipigs inhibit the acceleration of ASMC proliferation induced by simultaneously given risk factors. The proposal to augment up our arsenal of the hitherto existing preventive and therapeutical measures by the application of antirheumatic drugs based on the experimental models referred to is supported by the result of a limited prospective double-blind-study of a sample of 133 male patients after myocardial infarction. The most remarkable result that the acceleration of the ASMC proliferation, the real pathologic process of arteriosclerosis, is inhibited by the application of antirheumatic drugs, at exactly the same time as the acceleration of the fibroblast proliferation, the real pathologic process in rheumatic diseases — ASMC and fibroblast, both being mesenchymal cells — recommends the use of these drugs in the prevention and therapy of human arteriosclerosis. The surprising result of our in-vivo experiments, that the acceleration of the growth of the ASMC induced by risk factors and the inhibition of the growth induced by antirheumatic drugs persist in the subcultures, is explained by the “selection theory” that there are dissimilar kinds of ASMC in normal arteries and that they re