Exploring new links between adipose tissue and vascular redox state: The role of wnt5a
BHF Senior Clinical Research Fellow Professor Charalambos Antoniades is working out why obesity is a risk factor for blood vessel disease, leading to heart attacks and strokes. Fat, or adipose tissue, produces various molecules that have different effects on blood vessels. These molecules can themselves trigger the release of other harmful molecules called free radicals in the blood vessel wall, damaging the vessel wall and predisposing it to atherosclerosis (the build-up of fatty plaque in blood vessels). Using human fat and blood vessel tissue from heart surgery, Professor Antoniades recently discovered that when fat releases a molecule called wnt5a, free radicals are produced in the nearby blood vessel walls. He believes that wnt5a and another molecule that blocks wnt5a called sFRP5 control the imbalance between the production of free radicals and the ability of the body to counteract or detoxify their harmful effects in obesity and diabetes In this project, he will study this in more detail. Using tissue from 850 patients who have had heart surgery, he will explore how obesity affects wnt5a and sFRP release from human fat and how they regulate free radical production in blood vessels. He will also work out if this happens in mice and how wnt5a works. This research will find out if wnt5a could be a new clinical biomarker for risk of coronary artery disease and it may reveal new ways to treat blood vessel complications of obesity.
Project details
| Grant amount | £1,142,840 |
|---|---|
| Grant type | Fellowships |
| Application type | Senior Clinical Research Fellowship |
| Start Date | 01 April 2016 |
| Duration | 5 years |
| Reference | FS/16/15/32047 |
| Status | In Progress |
