Scripps scientists link ozone to ather...( erosis is commonly called hardening of ...)

Over the last few years, evidence has been accumulating that the process of atherosclerosis has a significant inflammatory component. Given this evidence, Lerner, Wentworth and their colleagues thought they would look at tissue involved in the disease for evidence of ozone.

Ozone is a particularly reactive form of oxygen that exists naturally as a trace gas in the atmosphere, constituting on average fewer than one part per million air molecules. The gas plays a crucial role in protecting life on earth from damaging solar radiation by concentrating in the upper reaches of Earth's stratosphere--about 25 kilometers above the surface--and absorbing ultraviolet radiation. Ozone is also a familiar component of air in industrial and urban settings where the highly reactive gas is a hazardous component of smog in the summer months.

A few years ago, Lerner and Wentworth made the completely unexpected discovery that ozone is involved in human biology.

Lerner and Wentworth realized that atherosclerotic plaques have all the ingredients needed to make ozone. They contain white blood cells, which have the ability to generate the singlet oxygen that the antibodies need to produce ozone--and plenty of antibodies passing by in the blood stream.

Ozone Present in Atherosclerotic Plaques

Last year, Lerner and Wentworth approached Giacomo DeLaria, M.D., who is a vascular surgeon at nearby Scripps Clinic, and asked if they could obtain samples of carotid atherosclerotic plaques. DeLaria provided a sample of plaque material from a patient who recently underwent an endarterectomy, generously enabling Wentworth, Lerner, and their colleagues to perform their studies. Endarterectomies are common surgical procedures to remove plaques from the inner walls of atherosclerotic arteries.

"These are specimens we normally just inspect and throw away," says DeLaria, who is a coauthor of the
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Contact: Jason Bardi
jasonb@scripps.edu
858-784-9254
Scripps Research Institute
6-Nov-2003