Do certain kinds of mechanical stress increase chances of atherosclerosis development?

Test of a new “comfort zone” theory relating mechanical stresses to atherosclerosis

In atherosclerosis, some parts of a single blood vessel appear to be more at risk of developing areas of fatty plaques – which can eventually rupture to cause a heart attack – than others. Professor Peter Weinberg and his team have been awarded a three-year grant to map the pattern of fatty plaques in the body’s blood vessels. They want to know if plaques appear more often in areas where different stresses are being placed on the vessels, such as friction caused by passing blood or more immune cells, which cause inflammation. They will also investigate, in mice, if plaques form more commonly where vessel walls are ‘leaky’, which could allow cholesterol to accumulate. The researchers will test the idea that cells in blood vessel walls have a ‘comfort zone’ in which they can tolerate frictional forces from blood flow, and how different frictional forces are detected by cells in the vessel walls. Identifying local factors within blood vessels that affect the chances of plaques developing could help find new ways of reducing the number of people affected by heart attacks.