Immunity, atherogenesis and vascular function

Intestinal Immunity and Gut Microbiota in Atherogenesis

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease. Interventions targeting the inflammatory process could provide new strategies for preventing atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Previously, we have reported that oral administration of anti-CD3 antibodies, or active vitamin D3, reduced atherosclerosis in mice via recruiting regulatory T cells and tolerogenic dendritic cells to the g...

Atherogenesis and Vascular Disease in SLE

The role of innate immunity in atherogenesis.

Lipid peroxidation is a common event in health and is greatly accelerated in pro-inflammatory settings such as hypercholesterolemia. Consequently, oxidation-specific epitopes are generated, which are pro-inflammatory and immunogenic, leading to both adaptive and innate responses. Because innate immune mechanisms use conserved germline pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that are preformed and ...

Commentary Vascular Endothelium, Hemodynamic Forces, and Atherogenesis

Intimal lipid accumulation, hyperplasia, and scarring are stigmata of atherosclerotic vascular disease, whose major complications—myocardial and cerebral ischemia and infarction—continue to be major health problems in developed nations. This insidiously progressive disease typically spans decades, but can reach a clinical horizon in a matter of minutes due to critical changes in a given atheros...

Adaptive immunity in atherogenesis: new insights and therapeutic approaches.

Many remarkable advances have improved our understanding of the cellular and molecular events in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Chief among these is the accumulating knowledge of how the immune system contributes to all phases of atherogenesis, including well-known inflammatory reactions consequent to intimal trapping and oxidation of LDL. Advances in our understanding of the innate and a...