Vincent Llorente.
A group of Spanish researchers participated in a international study whose first results show a new therapeutic approach that reduces the risk of heart attack in patients with coronary artery diseaseas arteriosclerosisand with metabolic pathologies, such as diabetes or obesity. To achieve this, targeted immunotherapy is performed. LRP1 low density lipoprotein receptor. A new therapeutic strategy that “allows an adapted, more personalized therapy for patients suffering from these diseases”, explains Vincent Llorentecoordinator of the work and researcher in the field Ciber Cardiovascular Diseases (cybercv), of the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (IIBB-CSIC) and the Biomedical Research Institute of Sant Pau (IIB Sant Pau).
The researcher points out medical writing that “this therapy has already been tested in a hypercholesterolemic rabbit model and that before it reaches humans, it is necessary to demonstrate it in more translational preclinical models such as the pig”. In addition, Llorente assures that “it is also essential to reach humanized monoclonal antibodieswhich is more complicated because they require a lot of financing for its high cost“.
To carry out this immunotherapy, Llorente points out that they have been studying this receptor “for 20 years to find out how it works”. In this sense, we discovered that this receptor binds, mainly, atherogenic lipoproteins (LDL) altered and pathological“. Regarding this pathological component, he adds that “the presence of the same has been evidenced in the LRP1 receptor in the cardiovascular system, as well as its reflection in the circulation of patients with coronary heart disease, in addition to diabetes and obesity”.
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“Therapeutic strategies are being developed to modify the pathological function of the LRP1 receptor” |
According to Llorente, for more than nine years they have been “developing Therapeutic strategies to modify the pathological function of the LRP1 receptor, but without modulating its essential functions. With this, the objective is to search for molecules capable of blocking the interaction of this receptor with atherogenic lipoproteins without modifying other important functions of its functionality”.
The therapeutic target of the LRP1 receptor
As Llorente explains, they began studying this receiver in 2015, “from the different parts that make it up to its sequence and, from there, we discovered the therapeutic target of this receptor: Peptides. These have a therapeutic action and, in addition, we have associated them with an adjuvant and thus they can produce an immune response, producing antibodies“.
Realizing all this, Llorente points out that “these antibodies ‘win’ against the atherogenic lipoproteins and block their entry through this pathological pathway. Thanks to which a great benefit is obtained at the level of the vascular wall, which offers as a result a class of immunization for the fatty diet-induced atherosclerosis“.
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“Cholesterol can affect the insulin response of the heart” |
By analyzing its effect directly on the heart, on its own cells called cardiomyocitos, which had not been carried out to date, the researcher reports that “we observe how cholesterol can affect the insulin response of the heart”. An approach that “not only inhibits atherosclerotic process in the vascular systembut also stop other pathologies at the cardiac level and can be very relevant in people diabetic and obese where it has already been described that there is a lot of accumulation of lipids in the heart,” he concludes.
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