Mouse Study Shows Some Type of Sugar May Treat Atherosclerosis

저자：   업로드：2017-06-09  조회수：

    Researchers have long sought ways to harness the body's immune system to treat disease, especially cancer. Now, scientists have found that the immune system may be triggered to treat atherosclerosis and possibly other metabolic conditions, including fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes.

    If one were to only listen to news sound bites, then their impression of carbohydrate molecules would be that they are either needed to sustain athletic endurance or that they are the root of all evil, destroying healthy lives, which doesn’t leave much grey area.

    Scientists are inclined to block out some of the popular “noise,” focusing on the biological role of sugar molecules in normal and disease pathology. In that vein, investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WUSM) have just provided new evidence showing how a natural sugar called trehalose revs up the immune system's cellular housekeeping abilities.

    Interestingly, these charged-up housecleaners can reduce atherosclerotic plaque that has built up inside arteries—a hallmark of cardiovascular disease that leads to an increased risk of heart attack. Findings from this new study were published recently in Nature Communications in an article entitled “Exploiting Macrophage Autophagy-Lysosomal Biogenesis as a Therapy for Atherosclerosis.”

    The researchers looked at the role of the immune system in mediating cellular pathways that are involved in potentially reversing atherosclerotic plaque formation.

    "We are interested in enhancing the ability of these immune cells, called macrophages, to degrade cellular garbage—making them supermacrophages," explained senior study investigator Babak Razani, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at WUSM.

    Macrophages are immune cells responsible for cleaning up many types of cellular waste, including misshapen proteins, excess fat droplets, and dysfunctional organelles—specialized structures within cells.

    "In atherosclerosis, macrophages try to fix damage to the artery by cleaning up the area, but they get overwhelmed by the inflammatory nature of the plaques," Dr. Razani noted. "Their housekeeping process gets gummed up, so their friends rush in to try to clean up the bigger mess and also become part of the problem. A soup starts building up—dying cells,

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