Finding a natural defense against clogged arteries
Scientists have long known that in diabetes, high levels of glucose and lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) trigger white blood cell called monocytes to move into artery walls and evolve into other cells known as macrophages. These cells engulf lipids but then end up stuck on the artery walls, eventually producing atherosclerosis (a narrowing and thickening of the walls). During this process, the high levels of glucose and lipids also activate multiple forms of a molecule called protein kinase C (PKC), which help these unhelpful macrophages to activate, survive and multiply, thus boosting inflammation. In experiments with a mouse model of type 2 diabetes, however, the Joslin investigators showed that one form of the PKC molecule called PKC-delta actually defends against this inflammation process, by suppressing the population of macrophages gone wrong. "The complete surprise to us was that although most forms of PKC make inflammation worse, PKC-delta happens to be t...