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Beschreibung:
Perioperative stress caused by major surgery can precipitate myocardial infarction. β-adrenoceptor blockers are widely used for cardiovascular diseases. We established a double hit model by the combination of a laparotomy with acute loss of 20% blood volume in ApoE-/- mice to examine the direct short-term effects of β-adrenoceptor blockers on acute plaque composition and stability in perioperative period. We found that perioperative stress induced atherosclerotic plaque growth and destabilization. Metoprolol treatment reduced plaque size in the early stage of plaque progression, but could not reduce it in advanced plaques. However, a novel morphology score, which we designed for evaluating the vulnerability of plaque, indicated significantly decreased plaque complexity after metoprolol treatment in both newly and advanced plaque. Moreover, we found that metoprolol up-regulated expression of TIMP-2 in the involved vessels. We therefore conclude that metoprolol treatment inhibits acute plaque development and decreases plaque complexity potentially by up-regulation of TIMP-2 expression.