This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Demer, L. L. Articles by Tintut, Y. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Demer, L. L. Articles by Tintut, Y. Related Collections Cardiovascular Pharmacology Smooth muscle proliferation and differentiation Other Vascular biology

(Circulation Research. 1999;84:250-252.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Osteopontin

Between a Rock and a Hard Plaque

Linda L. Demer, Yin Tintut

From the Departments of Medicine and Physiology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, Calif.

Correspondence to Linda L. Demer, MD, PhD, 47-123 CHS, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679.

Key Words: osteopontin • vascular disease • smooth muscle cell • calcification

Vascular calcification is widely regarded as merely a rare, end-stage, passive, degenerative, and inevitable process of aging. Decades ago, atherosclerosis had been similarly dismissed, but extensive research finally demonstrated its active regulation. Current research is now revising outdated views of vascular calcification. New imaging techniques made it clear that coronary calcification is neither rare nor end stage but occurs in 90% of patients with coronary artery disease¹ and that the vast majority of significant coronary stenoses are calcified.² Coronary calcification is also associated with increased cardiovascular risk.^{3 4}

One clue to the regenerative—rather than degenerative—nature of vascular calcification is that it often includes histopathological features of bone. In the 1700s, Morgagni and others described arterial ossification in their postmortem examinations: "... the left coronary artery appeared to have been changed into a bony canal from its very origin... . "⁵ In 1863, Virchow labeled the vascular changes as "ossification, not mere calcification, occurring by the same mechanism by which an osteophyte forms on the surface of bone."⁶ In 1906, marrow was described within the bone tissue within the arteries—a richly vascularized cellular red marrow containing adipocytes, neutrophils, eosinophils, lymphoid and erythroid cells, reticulocytes, megakaryocytes, and other characteristic elements of marrow.⁷ Bunting further described (and we have also observed) evidence of resorption by osteoclast-like cells in this tissue. Within the vascular tree, the aorta and cardiac valves are the most common sites of ossification, and these contain all the stages of osteogenesis from the youngest variety of osteoid tissue up to true . . . [Full Text of this Article]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. Proudfoot, J. N. Skepper, L. Hegyi, M. R. Bennett, C. M. Shanahan, and P. L. Weissberg Apoptosis Regulates Human Vascular Calcification In Vitro : Evidence for Initiation of Vascular Calcification by Apoptotic Bodies Circ. Res., November 24, 2000; 87(11): 1055 - 1062. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]