Background: The influence of the number of diseased coronary arteries on the mobilization of CD133/45(+) bone marrow-derived circulating progenitor cells (BM-CPCs) in peripheral blood (PB) in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) was analyzed.
Methods and results: Mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs by flow cytometry was measured in 120 patients with coronary 1 vessel (IHD1, n=40), coronary 2 vessel (IHD2, n=40), and coronary 3 vessel disease (IHD3, n=40), and in a control group (n=40). The mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs was significantly reduced in patients with IHD compared to the control group (P<0.001). The mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs was impaired in patients with IHD3 compared to IHD1 (P<0.001) and to IHD2 (P<0.001). But there was no significant difference in mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs between the patients with IHD2 and IHD1 (P=0.35). Moreover, we found significantly reduced CD133/45(+) cell mobilization in patients with a high SYNTAX-Score (SS) compared to a low SS (P<0.001) and an intermediate SS (P<0.001). In subgroup analyzes, we observed a significantly negative correlation between levels of hemoglobin A(1c) and the mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs (P=0.001, r=-0.6).
Conclusions: The mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs in PB is impaired in patients with IHD. This impairment might augment with increased number of diseased coronary arteries. Moreover, mobilization of CD133/45(+) BM-CPCs in ischemic tissue is further impaired by diabetes in patients with IHD.