Immune cells in the liver remove “bad cholesterol” from the blood

March 13, 2024

A new publication from Stephen Malin’s lab at CMM and Karolinska Institutet, shows that Kupffer cells in the liver react to high cholesterol levels and eat up excess chole-sterol. High LDL cholesterol causes damage to arteries and initiates atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The findings, published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, could potentially indicate new ways of preventing and treating cardiovascular and liver diseases.

Low density lipoproteins (LDL) transporting cholesterol in a blood vessel. Image: Tlecoatl Zyanya, Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 4.0.

(Left to right) Hanna Aulin, Giada Di Nunzio, Stephen Malin, Veronika Chizh, Xueming Zhang, Alina Li. Photo: Stefan Zimmerman.

Publication: Giada Di Nunzio, Sanna Hellberg, Yuyang Zhang, Osman Ahmed, Jiawen Wang, Xueming Zhang, Hanna M. Björck, Veronika Chizh, Ruby Schipper, Hanna Aulin, Roy Francis, Linn Fagerberg, Anton Gisterå, Jari Metso, Valentina Manfé, Anders Franco-Cereceda, Per Eriksson, Matti Jauhiainen, Carolina E. Hagberg, Peder S. Olofsson & Stephen G. Malin. Kupffer cells dictate hepatic responses to the atherogenic dyslipidemic insult. Nature Cardiovascular Research, online 11 March 2024. doi: 10.1038/s44161-024-00448-6.

This text is based on an article from Karolinska Institutet News.