Immunosuppressive drugs are widely and chronically used to avoid graft rejection in transplant recipients. However, they are also known to have organotoxic effects and can exert numerous side effects. The aim of this study was to assess whether the chronic treatment of rats with the most commonly used clinical immunosuppressive regimens in organ recipients had an effect on the morphology and function of the aorta. The rats were divided into five groups and each group was chronically treated with different sets of three immunosuppressive drugs (TRG, CRG, MRG, CMG, TMG) for 6 months. The changes were most profound in calcineurin inhibitor-based protocols. TMG protocol treatment was characterized by the most numerous alterations such as morphological changes, changes in the thickness of the tunic media, wider distances between elastic lamellae, an increase in the number of vSMCs and changes in collagen deposition. We concluded that the morphological changes were connected with MMP-2 and MMP-9/TIMP-2 and TIMP-1 imbalances, which was also determined and noticed.
Keywords: abdominal aorta; aortal media; immunosuppressive drugs; metalloproteinase inhibitors; metalloproteinases; morphology; morphometry.