Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Open Access

Abstract

Assessing Calcification Onset in Aortic Valve Interstitial Cells

Khan K, Yu B, Al-Kindi H, Cecere R and Schwertani A

Aortic valve stenosis (AVS) is one of the most common heart valve diseases, and surgical intervention remains the only viable treatment option. Thus, there is a need for novel and innovative treatments. One approach is to study the biological pathogenesis of this disease in hopes of finding new targets for drug therapy. Although this may be a viable option, it faces some methodological concerns. Many studies attempted to address the underlying mechanisms of this disease using aortic valves from bovine models. Although these may be viable models in certain diseased conditions, this may not be the case when studying calcification in AVS. Thus, the aim of our study was to assess the significance of drawing conclusions from bovine models to humans in the context of AVS, and investigate the role of alkaline phosphatase (ALP), an enzyme that increases calcium mineralization and deposition in aortic valve calcification. We also wanted to identify any differences in calcification when using different osteogenic media.

We used human and bovine valve interstitial cells (HAVICs and BAVICs, respectively), which are the most commonly used when study calcification in AVS, and cultured them in osteogenic media or DMEM as control media. We found that ALP activity differs widely between the two models, with bovine samples having approximately ten times more ALP activity. Our data also suggests that the degree of calcification and ALP activity differs between the different osteogenic media used.

Careful consideration should be taken when experimenting with bovine valves and drawing conclusions to human AVS, as they may not exhibit the same mechanisms of action. Furthermore, it may be important to identify a single standard osteogenic medium to use when studying calcification in AVS.