SA: Discovery could prevent artery hardening

AAP General News (Australia)
02-01-2000
SA: Discovery could prevent artery hardening

By Valkerie Mangnall

ADELAIDE, Feb 1 AAP - A discovery by Australian-based scientists could lead to a new
drug to prevent hardening of the arteries - a condition responsible for heart attacks
and strokes.

Researchers at the Hanson Centre for Cancer Research in Adelaide have identified a
way of stopping an enzyme which causes blood vessels to become sticky.

That stickiness enables low density lipoproteins (LDLs), or bad cholesterol, to build
up in the blood vessels leading to atherosclerosis - or hardening of the arteries.

Professor of Immunology and Medicine at the centre Mathew Vadas said the group found
high-density lipoprotein (HDL), commonly known as good cholesterol, switched off the enzyme
which caused blood vessels to become sticky.

"The enzyme is responsible for the blood vessels changing into very sticky tubes,"

Prof Vadas told AAP.

"The cells that carry the (bad) cholesterol stick to the blood vessel wall and move
into the blood vessel wall itself to cause this hardening of the arteries."

Prof Vadas said the research, recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry,
could lead to the development of a drug to immitate the effect of HDL on the enzyme, switching
it off and preventing the blood vessels from becoming sticky.

People at risk of developing atherosclerosis could start taking the drug in small doses
as a preventive agent.

"Atherosclerosis is a life-long disease, it starts in youth and just gets worse and
worse as you get older so prevention is the deal," Prof Vadas said.

The next step in the project is to carry out tests on mice and Prof Vadas expects to
have developed a prototype drug within a year.

It would be another five years before the drug could be available to patients, he said.

AAP vm/hu/

KEYWORD: HEART

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