Journal: Nano Convergence

Article Title: Clinical OCT computation-modeled prognosis of coronary plaque progression with validation by fusogenic macrophage nano-targeting

doi: 10.1186/s40580-026-00567-9

Figure Lengend Snippet: FM-vesicle as a sensor of plaque slope by targeting activated macrophages in rabbit carotid arteries. A Gentle and steep plaques were generated by incising rabbit carotid arteries to < 4 mm along the horizontal axis for gentle plaques and > 2 mm along the vertical axis, respectively. B Doppler imaging was conducted weekly for three sessions, followed by sacrifice on day 28 and ex vivo optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging of the harvested arteries. C When the plaque slope became steep compared to the gentle one, both forward (blue) and backward (red) flow peaks increased markedly, reflecting disturbed hemodynamics under doppler imaging on day 21. D By day 28, angiography revealed visibly greater accumulation of imaging contrast within steep plaques, consistent with a narrower flow channel observed in open-body CT compared to gentle plaques (Scale bars = 1 mm). The arteries were then harvested for the following experiments. E H&E staining of plaque regions showed that the steep slope induced a thickened neointima with the formation of a fibrous cap and necrotic core, in contrast to the mild intimal thickening observed with the gentle slope (Scale bars = 200 μm). F Immunofluorescence staining demonstrated a significantly higher abundance of macrophages (red CD68) among nuclei (blue) in steep plaques compared to gentle ones. (G) Consistently, MMP9 expression (red) was significantly upregulated in steep plaques, indicating macrophage activation in response to disturbed flow (scale bars = 100 μm). H The harvested arteries were connected to an ex vivo perfusion system with a peristaltic pump under pressure control. FM-vesicles loaded with gold nanoparticles were introduced to detect activated macrophages within plaques via catheter-based OCT imaging. I Cross-sectional OCT images clearly visualized arterial geometries, enabling quantitative analysis of gentle and steep slopes. J Perfusion with gold-loaded FM-vesicles yielded enhanced OCT signal intensity in steep plaques compared to gentle ones, reflecting increased accumulation of fusogenic macrophages which was validated by quantitative analysis. Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation (n: dots represent independent biological replicates in each group). Statistical significance was determined using a two-sided unpaired t-test for comparison between the two groups ( *p < 0.05, and ***p < 0.001)

Article Snippet: HUVECs were seeded at 1 × 10 6 cells mL −1 and allowed to adhere for 6 h. Endothelial growth medium was then perfused at 1076 μL minute −1 for 24 h using a peristaltic pump (BT100-1L, Longer Precision Pump Co., Ltd, Baoding, Hebei, China) to mimic physiological shear stress and arterial hemodynamics.

Techniques: Gentle, Generated, Imaging, Ex Vivo, Tomography, Staining, Immunofluorescence, Expressing, Activation Assay, Control, Standard Deviation, Comparison