THE ROLE OF ANTIENDOTHELIAL ANTIBODIES IN THE IMMUNOPATHOGENESIS OF TRANSPLANT ASSOCIATED CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE (REVIEW)

Transplant coronary artery disease (TxCAD) is manifest as a diffuse, c oncentric intimal proliferation which results in occlusion of the allo graft vessel lumen, and is responsible for limiting the long-term succ ess of cardiac transplantation. The recent discovery of high circulati ng levels of anti-endothelial antibodies (AEAs) in patients with TxCAD has resulted in increased clinical and experimental research interest s in understanding their patho-physiological roles in TxCAD. Increasin g evidence suggests that AEAs are crossreactive towards an endothelial protein doublet of 56-58 kDa which has now been characterised and ide ntified as the cytoskeletal protein vimentin. Despite this recent prog ress the immunopathogenesis of TxCAD remains unclear. In this review r ecent developments and mechanisms of the involvement of AEAs in the im munopathogenesis of TxCAD are discussed.