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Cardiovascular disease

A turbulent path to plaque formation

Nature volume 540, pages 531–532 (2016)Cite this article

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Plaque deposits often occur in curved arterial regions with turbulent blood flow. Endothelial cells have been found to respond to blood flow through a previously unidentified signalling pathway that affects plaque build-up. See Letter p.579

A key characteristic of the disease atherosclerosis is the gradual accumulation of plaque deposits on the walls of arteries. Plaque is composed of cellular waste, fatty deposits and cholesterol molecules, and is not uniformly distributed in arteries1. Some plaques can reach a size that obstructs blood flow to organs, causing heart attacks or strokes2. On page 579, Wang et al.3 propose a mechanism for plaque development that also provides an explanation for plaque-formation patterns.

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Figure 1: Endothelial-cell signalling can affect plaque formation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radcliffe Department of Medicine, Vedanta Mehta and Ellie Tzima are at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7BN, UK.,

    Vedanta Mehta & Ellie Tzima

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  1. Vedanta Mehta
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  2. Ellie Tzima
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Correspondence to Ellie Tzima.

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Mehta, V., Tzima, E. A turbulent path to plaque formation. Nature 540, 531–532 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20489

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