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Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease with high mortality worldwide. The reverse cholesterol transport pathway in macrophage plays an important role in the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD) and is strongly controlled by regulatory factors. The microRNAs can promote or prevent the formation of atherosclerotic lesions by post-transcriptional regulation of vital genes in this pathway. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the expression levels of miR-27a, miR-329, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and indices of oxidative stress in the patients with established CAD and controls. A total of 84 subjects (42 patients with CAD and 42 controls) were included in this study. Expression levels of miR-27a-3p, miR-329-3p, ABCA1, and ABCG1 genes in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and serum concentration of hs-CRP and ox-LDL were measured by real time-PCR and ELISA, respectively. Also, oxidative stress parameters in the serum were evaluated by ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and malondialdehyde (MDA) assays. ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in PBMC and serum concentration of FRAP were significantly lower in the CAD group compared to the control group. Expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 and serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and MDA were significantly higher in the CAD group compared to the control group. Serum levels of hs-CRP, ox-LDL, and expression level of miR-27a have inversely related to ABCA1 and ABCG1 gene expression in all the subjects. An increase in the expression levels of miR-27a and miR-329 may lead to the progression of atherosclerosis plaque by downregulating the expression of ABCA1 and ABCG1 genes.

A new nanocomposite of poly(o-methoxyaniline) (POMA) is introduced by overlayer formation of POMA on silica. The key appealing feature of the synthesis is the role of silica sulfuric acid (SSA) both as solid acid dopant and template in overlayer self-assembly of POMA on silica surface. Hereon siloxide group (Si―O−) of silica surface is replaced with dopant anion of SSA (≡Si―O―SO3−), which leads to formation of a overlayer of POMA on the silica surface. The composite particles are spherical in the nanoscale range of 50 nm without application of any external template (no-template synthesis). Nanocomposite was fully characterized by various instrumentation methods: Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), diffrential thermal analysis (DTA), elemental analysis (CHNS), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray difraction (XRD). Based on XPS and CHNS results, it is demonstrated that the doping level of POMA is as high as 50% and for the first time the ratio of 4:2:2 is obtained for ―NH― (amine): ―HN.+― (polarons): HN+― (bipolarons), respectively. In fact, bipolarons may also coexist with polarons with a 1:1 ratio of them. Moreover, the synthesis benefits from the perspective of green chemistry which is preparation under solid-state (solvent-free) condition. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.