Proteomics is a rapidly expanding investigation platform in cardiovascular medicine. Driven
by major improvements in Mass Spectrometry (MS) instrumentation and data analysis, the
proteomics fi eld has fl ourished in recent years particularly in the study of complex diseases.
These recent advances are characterized by the development of quantitative MS-based
methods that moved the fi eld on from primarily identifying proteins to also providing measurements
of relative changes in protein levels between different cell states, typically normal
controls versus diseased samples. The application of proteomic techniques to the vascular
pathology is a true re fl ection of this progress. Vascular proteomics of atherosclerotic lesions
has become a major experimental group of tools in the last years notably by revealing novel
proteins and signaling pathways to the processes involved in atherogenesis and its complications.
This book encompasses a selection of techniques and methods that target the key
processes implicated in atheroma plaque composition, formation, and development and the
various components and plasma proteins involved in the atherosclerotic process. In this
volume dedicated to Vascular Proteomics, we provide protocols and up-to-date methods
for the analysis of arteries, cells, lipoproteins, body fl uids (plasma, urine), and metabolites,
with a particular focus on MS-based methods of protein and peptide quanti fi cation. The
development of LC-MS/MS approaches has been a signi fi cant advance in many areas of
biomedical research, and vascular proteomics is no exception. After an introductory chapter,
we have followed a hierarchical order in the different chapters starting with methods
dedicated to tissues (Laser microdissection for the analysis of human arteries; Use of SIMSTOF
in vascular Biology), cells (Vascular smooth cells treated with atenolol;
Phosphoproteomic analysis of aortic endothelial cells; Characterization of membrane and
cytosolic proteins of erythrocytes), lipoproteins (Quantitative analysis of apolipoproteins in
HDL by top-down differential mass spectrometry; Quantitative proteomic analysis of highdensity
lipoproteins by stable 18-O-isotope labeling), plasma and plasma proteins, and
metabolites (Biomarkers of abdominal aortic aneurism by iTRAQ analysis of depleted
plasma; Absolute Quantitation of proteins in human blood by multiplexed multiple reaction
monitoring mass spectrometry; MRM of plasma proteins in cardiovascular proteomics;
Metabolites secreted by human atherothrombotic aneurysm). We have also included several
chapters on very speci fi c samples such as the analysis of thrombus (Identi fi cation of novel
biomarkers of abdominal aortic aneurysm from thrombus conditioned media), the secretome
of arteries (Characterization of human arterial tissue secretome by 2-DE and nLCMS/MS),
and the study of exosomes (Proteomic analysis of urinary exosomes in
cardiovascular and associated kidney diseases by 2-DE and LC-MS/MS). This type of sampling
has great potential for the possible identi fi cation of new biomarkers, and their analysis
is therefore of great interest.