Chaperone Mediated Autophagy as a Target for the Treatment of Atherosclerosis

Forms of autophagy function to remove unwanted, excess, or damaged structures and other molecules in the cell. These materials are delivered to a lysosome, a membrane packed with enzymes capable of dismantling near every macromolecule a cell will encounter, producing raw materials for reuse. Autophagy is quite clearly connected to tissue function and aging in a number of ways. It appears to decline in quality with age, leading to downstream problems in cell and tissue function as worn and damaged component parts accumulate. Upregulation of autophagy for long periods of time is a feature of numerous interventions, such as calorie restriction and calorie restriction mimetics, that result in slowed aging. In today's research materials, the team involved in developing autophagy-upregulating small molecule therapies at Life Biosciences discuss evidence for chaperone-mediated autophagy to be relevant in atherosclerosis. In atherosclerosis, fatty deposits build up in blood vessels as a result of macrophages becoming less capable of returning excess cholesterol to the blood stream. The chronic inflammation and oxidative stress of age disrupts the ability of macrophages sufficiently to allow atherosclerotic plaques to form in the first place, but once formed the plaque is a hostile environment that overwhelms macrophages with excess cholesterol. Anything that improves macrophage resilience can help. It is actually not that hard to significantly slow the growth of athero...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs