CLOGGED blood vessels could one day be cleared without resorting to surgery.
Injections of an enzyme that breaks down fats might do the job instead.
Gregory Grabowski of the Children鈥檚 Hospital Medical Center of Cincinnati,
Ohio, has found that a human enzyme called lysosomal acid lipase clears clogged
vessels in mice. This is the first 鈥減roof of principle鈥� that cholesterol plaques
can be eliminated by an enzyme, he says.
The team fed a high-cholesterol diet to mice engineered to be deficient in
cholesterol receptors. Mice treated in this way invariably get severely clogged
arteries. After either two-and-a-half or three-and-a-half months the researchers
then gave the mice repeated injections of the enzyme.
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Seven of eight mice given early treatment had none of the coronary lesions
seen in controls, and some were free of lesions in the aorta. 鈥淢ost of the
vessels were completely clear,鈥� says Grabowski.
Giving the therapy later also helped. The lesions in these mice were 鈥渘ot
gone, but diminished鈥�, Grabowski says.
