A new paradigm in CVD is waiting for drugs: dysfunctional or erased Glycocalyx barrier needs to be repaired

The Cell membrane of tissue Cells

(a) Electron micrographs of goat capillary glycocalyx and (b) examples of the spatial heterogeneity of glycocalyx dimensions in the vascular system (courtesy of Dr Bernard van den Berg).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2006.01625.x/

Schematic diagram showing the components and spatial organization of the endothelial glycocalyx. In the diagram, a denotes the region where the cytoplasmic tail of syndecan links to the actin cytoskeleton, b indicates oligomerization of syndecans, and c labels caveolin protein within a caveola. All other components are labeled in the diagram. 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450720/

"In vitro models of hyperglycemia associated with diabetes are characterized by loss of HS and of FSS mechanotransduction, most notably the loss of elongation of ECs in the direction of shear (133) and the phosphorylation of eNOS in response to FSS (134). The observations that with diabetes, atherosclerosis is distributed more uniformly in arteries rather than limited to the typical atherogenic regions (regions of low shear or disturbed flow) near bifurcations and curvatures (135) and that vasodilation is altered (136) suggest that there is something fundamentally different in the mechanosensing apparatus of ECs during disease and may be explained in part by alterations in GCX."