Objective To explore the role and correlation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPAR-γ) and Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) on pulmonary vascular remodeling of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD).Methods Ninety male patients who underwent surgery for squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled as our subjects.All patients were divided into COPD group and uon-COPD group based on lung function,and 45 cases in each group.Peripheral lung tissues without tumor infiltrated after lobectomy were taken to assess the degree of arterial inflammation,percentage of wall thickness to vessel diamater (WT％) and percentage of wall area to total vascular area(WA％) were measured through Hematoxylin-Eosin(HE) staining under light microscope.The expression of PPARγand TLR4 were determined by immunohistochemistry.Results The distribution of WA％ and WT％ in COPD group were (43.98 ±6.43)％ and (27.37 ±3.34)％,higher than that of non-COPD group ((26.09 ± 2.82) ％,t =-13.949,P =0.000 ; (15.57 ± 1.75) ％,t =-7.140,P =0.000).The expression of PPAR-γand TLR4 in COPD group were (10.74 ± 8.81) ％,(3 1.41 ± 14.67) ％ respectively,and (28.22 ± 15.08)％,(4.67 ± 4.47)％ in non-COPD group.The differences were statistic significantly(t =5.483,P =0.000; t =-9.555,P =0.000).And there was negative correlation between the expression of PPARγand TLR4 (r =-0.404,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion The pulmonary vascular of COPD patients showed the obviously inflammatory cell infiltration,fibrosis and proliferation,and PPAR-γ and TLR4 participate in the regulation of pulmonary vascular remodeling.

Objective To explore the correlation between the expressions of matrix metalloproteinase -9 (MMP-9), Toll-likeReceptor 4 ( TLR4) and lung revascularization in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease .Methods Lung tissues frompatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (COPD group,n =25) and those without COPD (non-COPD group,n =25) were obtained from surgically resected specimens .The ratio of the area of the wall to that of the pulmonary arterioles (WA %) andthe ratio of the thickness of the wall to the external diameter of the pulmonary arterioles (WT %) were analyzed by computer-based imageanalysis system.Immunohistochemical technique was applied to investigate the expressions of TLR 4, proliferative cell nuclear antigen(PCNA) and MMP-9 in vascular smooth muscle cells.Results ⑴ The inflammatory infiltration degree, WA %, and WT %were significantly higher than that of non -COPD group ( P <0.01), respectively.⑵Compared with non-COPD group, the expressionsof PCNA, TLR4, and MMP-9 in vascular smooth muscle cells were increased significantly ( P <0.01).⑶The expressions of TLR4,MMP-9 had a positive correlation with WA%, WT%, degree of inflammatory infiltration, and the expression of PCNA ( r =0.67,0.74,0.47,0.44;0.59,0.71,0.61,0.33, P <0.01), up-regulated expression of TLR4 was closely related with the expression of MMP-9 ( r =0.55, P <0.01).Conclusions The pulmonary arterioles of COPD patients showed marked inflammatory and arteriolemuscularization, the TLR4 might aggravate inflammation,induced upregulation of MMP-9 expression, played an important role in the pulmonary vascular remodeling process.