Thèse soutenue

FR
Auteur / Autrice : Rajai Atout
Direction : Ewa Ninio
Type : Thèse de doctorat
Discipline(s) : Physiologie et Physiopathologie
Date : Soutenance en 2012
Etablissement(s) : Paris 6

Résumé

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Atherosclerosis, the main cause of cardiovascular diseases is a chronic inflammatory disease triggered by modified lipoproteins which are retained in the arterial wall and sustained with the continued recruitment of inflammatory cells. We have studied the genetic regulation of two new biomarkers which target oxidized LDL (lipoprotein associated phospholipase A2; LpPLA2/ PAF-AH and anti-phosphorylcholine (anti-PC) antibodies). We found that the heritability of PAF-AH/Lp-PLA2 is less than previously described and that anti-PC levels are partly influenced by dominance genetics. Endothelial injury/dysfunction is considered as an early initiating step in atherosclerotic lesion formation. We identified unfolded protein response (UPR) as a major signalling pathway induced in endothelial cells incubated with LDL phospholipolyzed by GX sPLA2 (LDL-X). Since calcium chelation prevented UPR activation in our experimental conditions, we hypothesized that Ca2+ release from the endoplasmic reticulum is implicated in this process. In the presence of TMB-8, an ER-Ca2+ stabilizer, we showed that decreasing UPR activation we also diminished the related apoptotic pathways caused by LDL-X in endothelial cells. Finally, we demonstrated the ability of LDL-X to modulate the immune response by promoting the maturation of dendritic cells with subsequent activation of Th1 response, the prevalent and pro-atherogenic response of atheroma T cells