Researchers from the Research Group on Lipids and Cardiovascular Pathology at IR Sant Pau and IIBB-CSIC, led by Dr. Vicenta Llorente, have published an article in Theranostics. In the article “Immunization with the Gly1127-Cys1140 amino acid sequence of the LRP1 receptor reduces atherosclerosis in rabbits. Molecular, immunohistochemical and nuclear imaging studies ”have also collaborated researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the Hospital Vall d’Hebron in the context of different CIBER groups.
The work demonstrates through different molecular, immunohistochemical and nuclear imaging approaches that immunization with a peptide, which is part of the specific domain of the LRP1 receptor, dramatically reduces atherosclerosis by stopping vascular cholesterol accumulation and pro-inflammatory signaling in the vasculature, in an in vivo model of diet-induced atherosclerosis. This study also demonstrates that the therapeutic efficacy of the antibodies generated by immunization can be tracked using non-invasive imaging techniques, which increases the translationality of this new therapeutic tool.
