Scientists from the Queen Mary University of London found how the progression of atherosclerosis is affected by a combination of high blood pressure and changes to the stiffness of the artery.
The research is published in Science Advances and was conducted by Dr. Thomas Iskratsch et al.
Atherosclerosis is the thickening or hardening of the arteries. It is a common and severe disease, which amongst others can lead to heart attacks, angina and heart failure.
There is currently no effective treatment. Common risk factors are hypertension and aging-associated changes to the stiffness of the artery wall.
In the study, the team discovered the importance of pressure sensing in combination with sensing of the stiffness, in determining the behavior of vascular smooth muscle cells.
The study further found the molecular pathways related to the “mechanical sensing” in cells and tissues.
The researchers examined how high blood pressure and changes to the stiffness of the artery wall are both sensed by the vascular smooth muscle cells in the walls of the arteries.
While overall the arterial wall becomes stiffer, they found that initial thickening of the artery wall leads to a softer environment on the cellular scale, which together with the higher blood pressure stimulates the smooth muscle cells to change their behavior and switch from a contractile to a “synthetic” phenotype.
This enables the cells to degrade and remodel their environment further, leading to further softening and spiraling of the disease progression.
The team also found that both pressure and soft environment sensing act through different molecular pathways but were acting on the same effector molecule.
So far, there is a lack of efficient treatments for atherosclerosis. Vascular smooth muscle cells take an important role in the disease progression and especially their phenotypic switching is a critical step.
Future studies will look at how the findings can be harnessed for treatment approaches.
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