Test-tube experiments showed the Iceland gene causes the body's production of leukotrienes to go into overdrive.
Allayee is part of a USC-UCLA team exploring the link between leukotrienes and atherosclerosis.
Leukotrienes are inflammation-producing molecules that have long been known to be involved in asthma.
The response to allergens and foreign particles in the lungs is controlled by leukotrienes.
She focused on a protein called 5-lipoxygenase, a key enzyme that spurs the body to produce leukotrienes.
Mehrabian's colleague Dr. Allayee took the lead in figuring out whether leukotrienes are involved in human cardiovascular disease.
The accumulating evidence makes it "almost a certainty" that leukotrienes play an important role in human disease, Lusis says.
He was stunned to find that the plaques contained huge quantities of leukotrienes.
Marketed drugs such as Singulair only target some types of leukotrienes and may not hit the ones involved in heart disease.
Only very recently have scientists begun to suspect that leukotrienes might also be involved in heart disease (see " Prevention Puzzle").
There are numerous types of leukotrienes, and it is not yet totally clear which kinds are most involved in heart disease.
This protein spurs the body to produce crucial inflammatory molecules called leukotrienes, which had been thought to be involved mainly in asthma.
The new data indicate that leukotrienes, immune-system-signaling molecules previously thought to play a crucial role only in asthma, are also overabundant inside diseased arteries.
This constant low-level overproduction of leukotrienes, DeCode researchers figure, inflames artery walls, over time helping destabilize fatty deposits and making them prone to sudden rupture.
The disease gene findings hint that inflammatory molecules called leukotrienes, previously thought to be involved mainly in asthma, may also be involved in heart attacks.
This is a big deal from the standpoint of treatment implications ... because there are drugs already on the market or in development that block leukotrienes.
Montelukast works by blocking the production of the leukotrienes.
In 2002 they found that the arteries in these mice never clogged up, no matter how much fat they ate, an indication that a lack of leukotrienes lowered the inflammation risk behind atherosclerosis.
One of the first hints that leukotrienes might be involved in heart disease came over a decade ago, when Harvard Medical School biochemist Charles Serhan examined coronary plaque samples from 12 angioplasty patients.
Led by company founder and CEO Kari Stefansson , the DeCode team showed that almost 30% of 779 heart attack patients in Iceland and 15% of 753 British heart attack patients had alterations in a gene called ALOX5AP that cause their arteries to produce unusually high levels of the bad leukotrienes.
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