Somers - Figure 21
The Effect of Monocytes on Human Endothelial Cells in Culture
FIG. 21: As shown by the schematic in this Figure white cells from a sleep apneic patient and from a control subject were loaded with chromium and then the white cells were incubated with endothelial cells in culture. The result was that the apneic white cells tended to bind more readily to the endothelial cells than did the control subject’s white cells.
In other words, for reasons that are currently not completely understood, the white cells from sleep apneic patients tend to be more “sticky” and to adhere to endothelial cells. The implication of this is that the apneic subject’s white cells are more likely to damage the endothelial cells, thus allowing mast cells and oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to pass through the endothelial cell layer into the vessel wall. The other implication, of course, is endothelial dysfunction, which is a fairly commonly reported finding in patients with sleep apnea.
References
Dyugovskaya L, Lavie P, Lavie L. Increased adhesion molecules expression and production of reactive oxygen species in leukocytes of sleep apnea patients. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2002;165:934–939.
