Age and gender effects on apoptosis in the human coronary arterial wall

The relationship between aging and apoptosis remains unclear. We wondered whether apoptosis could be enhanced in arterial aging in the absence of overt or advanced arterial disease. Apoptosis-related proteins were investigated using three methods: TdT-mediated dUTP digoxigenin nick end labeling (TUNEL) technique, active cysteine-dependant aspartate specific proteases (caspase)-3 and poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) in coronary arteries of human subjects ranging from 25 to 92 years. We found no significant correlation between age and the apoptotic index using the three methods. The percentage of active caspase-3 positive cells was found to be significantly higher in men than in women (9.11 ± 12.3 cells/mm(2) versus 2.01 ± 4.55 cells/mm2, respectively, p = 0.017). These sex-related differences did not reach statistical significance using TUNEL (9.93 ± 17 and 2.61 ± 4.58 cells/mm(2), p = 0.32) and PARP methods (3.42 ± 7.74 and 0.86 ± 0.95 cells/mm(2), p < 0.49). This is the first report of detection of apoptotic cells in the human arterial wall in adult subjects free from arterial diseases. Apoptosis is an attractive hypothesis to account for organ aging, but our study suggests that apoptosis is not a key factor in aging of the arterial wall. © 2005 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.