REVIEW
Experimental immunotherapeutic approaches
for atherosclerosis
Shahzada Amir
a,b
, Christoph J. Binder
a,b,
⁎
a
Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria
b
Department of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Vienna, Austria
Received 13 May 2009; accepted with revision 6 July 2009
Available online 8 August 2009
KEYWORDS
Atherosclerosis;
Immunomodulation;
Oxidized LDL;
Oxidized phospholipids;
Immunization;
Tolerance;
Antibodies;
Adjuvants;
Peptide
Abstract Therapeutic options in atherosclerosis have largely been limited to the control of risk
factors, such as hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, or diabetes. However, atherosclerosis is a
chronic inflammatory disease in which dyslipidemia and inflammation are equally involved in
disease pathogenesis. Moreover, abundant epidemiological and experimental evidence point to
an important modulatory role of innate and adaptive immunity in atherogenesis, providing novel
therapeutic targets for this disease. Indeed, there is now accumulating data in animal models
demonstrating the potential for immunotherapeutic approaches to treat atherosclerosis. These
include both general and antigen-specific ways of modulating immune functions, and they show
great promise for the development of alternative and/or adjuvant therapies for atherosclerosis.
© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Contents
Introduction ............................................................ 67
Interference with cytokine and chemokine signalling ..................................... 67
General immune modulation ................................................... 67
Anti-CD3 antibodies ...................................................... 67
Co-stimulatory signals ..................................................... 67
Antigen-specific immune modulation .............................................. 68
Active immunization........................................................ 70
Homologous oxidized LDL ................................................... 70
Phosphocholine (PC) ...................................................... 71
Native and MDA-modified apoB-100 peptides ........................................ 71
Passive immunization ....................................................... 71
Anti-PC IgM ........................................................... 71
Anti-MDA-peptide IgG1 .................................................... 75
⁎ Corresponding author. CeMM & Dept. of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel
18-20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
E-mail address: christoph.binder@meduniwien.ac.at (C.J. Binder).
1521-6616/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.clim.2009.07.009
available at www.sciencedirect.com
Clinical Immunology
www.elsevier.com/locate/yclim
Clinical Immunology (2010) 134,66–79