Treatment of atherosclerotic disorders

#The present invention relates to methods of treating atherosclerosis and related conditions in an individual.

#Auto-antibodies against such lipids as cholesterol [Swartz G. M., Jr., et al Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (1988), 85, 1902-1906, Alving C. R. and Swartz G. M., Jr. Critical Reviews in Immunology (1991), 10, 441-453.], phospholipids [Alving C. R. Biochem. Soc. . Trans. (1984), 12, 342-344.] and low density lipoproteins (LDL) are found in human plasma [Kabakov A. E. et al Clin. Immun. Immunopath. (1992), 63, 214-220, Mironova M et al Ibid. (1997), 85, 73-82.] and are involved in the development of atherosclerosis [Lopes-Virella M. F. and Virella G. Clin. Immun. Immunopath. (1994), 73, 155-167, Kiener P. A. et al Arterioscler. Thromb. Vasc. Biol. (1995), 15, 990-999.].

#Separately, neither antibodies nor LDL are a pathogenic factor, only the immune complex of the two [Tertov V. V et al Atherosclerosis (1990), 81, 183-189, Orekhov A. N. et al Biochem. Biophys. Res. Comm. (1989), 162, 206-211.].

#FIG. 1 shows the results of an agglutination reaction between 100 μl of ovine Chlamydia and IgG extracted from human atherosclerotic lesion.

#FIG. 2 shows the dependence of ovine Chlamydia peroxidation on the concentration of human atherosclerotic lesion IgG. Concentration of Chlamydia was constant and the pH was 5.7.

#FIG. 3 shows the Michaelis-Menten kinetics of lipid peroxidation in ovine Chlamydia by 1.8 μg human atherosclerotic lesion IgG; apparent KM=13.3-16.1 μl of Chlamydia suspension; pH 5.7.

#As described above, the present invention, in various aspects, relates to the use of lipid oxidising antibodies as a therapeutic target in methods of treatment of atherosclerotic disorders.

#A method of treatment of an individual having an atherosclerotic disorder may comprise reducing antibody mediated lipid oxidation activity in the vascular system of said individual.

#Antibody mediated lipid oxidation activity may be reduced by administering an inhibitor of a lipid oxidising antibody to said individual or by reducing the amount or level of lipid oxidising antibody in the vascular system of the individual as further described below.