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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Dec 27.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2013 Nov 5;9(12):731–740. doi: 10.1038/nrrheum.2013.161

Figure 1.

Figure 1

The walls of human arteries are multi-layered, with an endothelial barrier in the intima, sheets of vascular smooth muscle cells in the media and the vasa vasorum network in the adventitia. Endogenous vascular dendritic cells populate the adventitia (left) and are responsible for the recruitment of T cells and macrophages into the tissue niche. In early and untreated vasculitis, IFN-γ–producing Th1 cells and IL-17-secreting Th17 cells are abundant, surrounded by macrophages (middle). Corticosteroid therapy diminishes Th17 cells but cannot clear Th1 cells from the vascular lesions (right). Dysregulated VSMC migrate towards the lumen and lay down to form lumen-stenosing intimal hyperplasia.