Elastin is a primary structural protein in the arterial wall that contributes to vascular mechanical properties and degrades with aging. Aging is associated with arterial stiffening and an increase in blood pressure. There is evidence that arterial aging follows different timelines with sex. Our objective was to investigate how elastin content affects arterial remodeling in male and female mice with aging. We used male and female wild-type (Eln^+/+) and elastin heterozygous (Eln^+/-) mice at 6, 12, and 24 months of age and measured their blood pressure and arterial morphology, wall structure, protein content, circumferential stress, stretch ratio, and stiffness. Two arteries were used with varying contents of elastin: the left common carotid and ascending aorta. We show that Eln^+/- arteries start at a different homeostatic set point for circumferential wall stress, stretch, and material stiffness, but show similar increases with aging to Eln^+/+ mice. With aging, structural stiffness is greatly increased, while material stiffness and circumferential stress are only slightly increased, highlighting the importance of maintaining these homeostatic values. Circumferential stretch shows the smallest change with age and may be important for controlling cellular phenotype. Independent sex differences are mostly associated with males being larger than females, however many of the measured factors show age x sex and/or genotype x sex interactions, indicating that males and females follow different cardiovascular remodeling timelines with aging and are differentially affected by reduced elastin content.

中文翻译：

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小鼠弹性蛋白单倍体不足对随年龄增长的动脉重塑有不同的影响，具体取决于性别

弹性蛋白是动脉壁中的一种主要结构蛋白，有助于血管的机械性能并随着年龄的增长而降解。衰老与动脉硬化和血压升高有关。有证据表明，动脉老化遵循不同的性别时间线。我们的目标是研究弹性蛋白含量如何影响衰老的雄性和雌性小鼠的动脉重塑。我们使用雄性和雌性野生型 (Eln ^+/+ ) 和弹性蛋白杂合子 (Eln ^+/- ) 小鼠在 6、12 和 24 个月大时测量了它们的血压和动脉形态、壁结构、蛋白质含量、周应力、拉伸比和刚度。使用了两条具有不同弹性蛋白含量的动脉：左颈总动脉和升主动脉。我们证明了 Eln^+/-动脉开始于不同的周壁应力、拉伸和材料刚度的稳态设定点，但随着年龄的增长与 Eln ^+/+相似老鼠。随着老化，结构刚度大大增加，而材料刚度和周向应力仅略有增加，突出了保持这些稳态值的重要性。圆周拉伸显示随年龄的最小变化，可能对控制细胞表型很重要。独立的性别差异主要与男性大于女性有关，但许多测量因素显示年龄 x 性别和/或基因型 x 性别相互作用，表明男性和女性随着年龄的增长遵循不同的心血管重塑时间线，并且受到弹性蛋白减少的不同影响内容。