A discovery about how the body deals with the cholesterol contained within its dying cells has suggested an exciting new approach to control people’s cholesterol levels – and thus their risk of developing heart disease.
The discovery from the University of Virginia School of Medicine reveals a previously unknown mechanism by which cells that are about to die inform the cells that are about to eat them how to handle the cholesterol they contain. By stimulating or simulating this molecular messaging, doctors may one day be able to better regulate the body’s levels of HDL and LDL cholesterol – the so-called “good” and “bad” cholesterols.
“We turn over roughly a million cells in the body per second as part of routine, healthy living, and these ‘corpses’ are rapidly eaten and processed by neighboring cells referred to as phagocytes,” explained researcher Kodi S. Ravichandran, PhD. “But there’s a challenge here: When a phagocyte eats another cell, it’s basically like your neighbor moving in with you with all their belongings. The phagocyte that has just eaten the dying cell has to manage all the cholesterol, lipids, proteins, carbohydrates and other components that have come from the target it has just eaten – on top of maintaining its own routine metabolism.”
The discovery made by Aaron Fond in the Ravichandran laboratory explains how the dying cells offer one type of deathbed instructions for dealing with the excess cholesterol. That knowledge opens the door to targeted therapies that could control the process.
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