Cholesterol transport between red blood cells and lipoproteins contributes to cholesterol metabolism in blood
Ryunosuke Ohkawa, Hann Low, Nigora Mukhamedova, Ying Fu, Shao-Jui Lai, Mai Sasaoka, Ayuko Hara, Azusa Yamazaki, Takahiro Kameda, Yuna Horiuchi, Peter J. Meikle, Gerard Pernes, Graeme I. Lancaster, Michael Ditiatkovski, Paul J. Nestel, Boris Vaisman, Denis Sviridov, Andrew Murphy, Alan T. Remaley, Dmitri Sviridov, Minoru Tozuka
Abstract
ments of plasma levels of LDL-C and HDL-C are commonly used to predict the risk of atherosclerosis. Although very useful and reliable, these traditional biomarkers do not always fully reflect the risk of cardiovascular events. Furthermore, when plasma levels of lipoproteins are targeted by lipid-lowering therapies, they reduce but do not eliminate cardiovascular risk despite normalizing the plasma levels of lipoproteins. Existence of what has been termed a "residual risk" strongly suggests that other players that modulate systemic cholesterol metabolism may also contribute to cardiovascular disease risk (1).