Table 1.
Study inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Fig 1.
Flow diagram of patient selection and study design (A). Box and whisker plot showing maximum infrarenal aorta diameter of each patient enrolled in the study (B). AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm; US, ultrasound; CT, computed tomography; qRT-PCR, quantitative real-time PCR.
Table 2.
Patients excluded from study.
Table 3.
Characteristics, medication use, and abdominal aorta size of patients enrolled in the study.
Fig 2.
Characterization of plasma-derived exosomes.
Representative Western blot indicating that exosomes expressed exosome specific markers—CD81, CD63, and CD9 and minimal expression of ApoA1, which is a marker of high-density lipid contamination. Cultured THP-1 macrophage exosomes were used as a positive control. Each column is numbered according to the resultant fraction from cushioned-density gradient ultracentrifugation.
Fig 3.
Volcano plot depicting miRNA differential expression in controls vs. AAA group.
The dots represent the 40 miRNA that were differentially expressed as assessed by P < 0.05 before false discovery rate (FDR) adjustment. Dashed vertical lines indicate the threshold for a relative expression fold change (FC) of 2 or -2-fold. The dashed horizontal line represents the threshold of a 0.05 FDR value. The red dot (miRNA-122-5p) has an absolute log2 FC >2 and an FDR adjusted P < 0.05. The yellow dots represent miRNAs with an absolute log2 FC > 2 that were not statistically significant after FDR adjustment. FDR, false discovery rate.
Table 4.
Exosomal miRNAs differentially expressed in AAA group vs. controls.
Fig 4.
qRT-PCR analysis of miR-122-5p.
MicroRNA levels are presented as fold changes (2-ΔΔCt). The Y-axis depicts values normalized to miR-16-5p. The mean relative expression of exosomal miR-122-5p was 2.38 vs. 8.85 in the AAA and control group, respectively (P = 0.026). *P <0.05. AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Fig 5.
Interleukin-6 levels in the control and AAA groups.
There was no significant difference in plasma levels of IL-6 between groups (P = .17). AAA, abdominal aortic aneurysm; IL-6, interleukin-6.