Back ground The functional endothelial cell monolayer on coronary stents is a crucial factor in both stent thrombosis and restenosis. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) can differentiate into mature endothelial cells and promote re-endothelialization after vascular injury. Vascular endothelial-cadherin (VE-cadherin) is one of the specific surface markers of EPCs. In the present study, we evaluated whether the VE-cadherin antibody-coated stents might accelerate re-endothelialization and reduce neointimal formation through the ability of capturing EPCs.
Methods The stainless stents were coated with rabbit anti-human VE-cadherin polyclonal antibodies and exposed to EPCs for 30 minutes in vitro. In rabbits, we deployed VE-cadherin antibody-coated stents and bare metal stents (BMSs) in the right and left iliac arteries, respectively. The animals were sacrificed after 3 and 42 days. Both stents were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), histological and immunohistochemical (IHC) analysis.
Results In vitro study, the number of EPCs which adhered to the surface of antibody-coated stents was significantly higher than BMSs. SEM analysis showed that over 90% surface of antibody-coated stents was covered with endothelial cells at 3 days after stent deployment in the rabbit iliac artery. At 42 days, neointimal area was significantly lower in the antibody-coated stents compared to BMSs in histological analysis of 10 rabbits (0.95 짹 0.22 vs 1.34 짹 0.43, mm2, respectively, p=0.02). IHC analysis revealed that infiltrations of inflammatory cells were not significantly different in both stents.
Conclusions VE-cadherin antibody-coated stents captured EPCs successfully in vitro. Furthermore, these antibody-coated stents accelerated re-endothelialization of stent surface and reduced neointimal formation in rabbit iliac artery.

Key word: VE-cadherin, stent