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King III a , Nicolas Chronos a , John F. McDonald d , Dongming Hou a, ⁎ a Saint Joseph's Translational Research Institute, Saint Joseph's Hospital of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA, United States b Department of Cardiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, China c The Northside Heart Institute, Atlanta, GA, United States d The School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States article info Article history: Received 26 March 2012 Received in revised form 30 May 2012 Accepted 8 June 2012 Available online 21 June 2012 Keywords: Drug-eluting stent Vasomotor function Gene expression The underlying molecular mechanisms of vascular endothelial dysfunction after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation remain undefined so far. In our previous published studies [1], profound localized inflammatory reaction, as well as enhanced local oxidative stress were seen to contribute to vasomotor dysfunction following overlapping DES. Our recent work further investigated the effects of overlap DES on coronary vasomotor function and local gene expression in porcine coronary arteries. A total of 19 animals underwent implantation of overlapping bare metal stents (BMS; n=12), sirolimus-eluting stent (SES; n=12), and zotaroliums- eluting stents (ZES; n=13) as previously described [2]. Each animal was randomly assigned two pairs of identical stents, implanted into any of the three epicardial coronary arteries with a 1.1:1 stent to artery ratio, as well as overlap of one-third to one-half of the stent length. One animal from the ZES group was implanted with only one pair of stents. At 28 days, endothelium-dependent vasomotor func- tion was assessed following infusion of incremental doses of acetylcholine (Ach 10 - 6 and 10 - 5 M, 1 ml/min for 2 min). Endothelium-independent function was assessed by nitroglycerin (NTG, 200 μg). Quantitative coronary angiography was analyzed for luminal diameter changes in response to both Ach and NTG and expressed as percent of diameter change as compared with baseline. After termination, stented arteries from two animals in each group were collected for gene expression, and the remaining were used for histological evaluation. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Saint Joseph's Translational Research Institute, 380-B Northyards Blvd., Atlanta, GA 30313, United States. E-mail address: dmhou@iupui.edu (D. Hou). 1 The first 2 authors contributed equally to this work. 210 Letters to the Editor