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Review
. 2021 Sep 14;9(9):1221.
doi: 10.3390/biomedicines9091221.

Macrophages and Foam Cells: Brief Overview of Their Role, Linkage, and Targeting Potential in Atherosclerosis

Anastasia V Poznyak  1 , Nikita G Nikiforov  2   3   4 , Antonina V Starodubova  5   6 , Tatyana V Popkova  7 , Alexander N Orekhov  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Macrophages and Foam Cells: Brief Overview of Their Role, Linkage, and Targeting Potential in Atherosclerosis

Anastasia V Poznyak et al. Biomedicines. .

Abstract

Atherosclerosis is still one of the main causes of death around the globe. This condition leads to various life-threatening cardiovascular complications. However, no effective preventive measures are known apart from lifestyle corrections, and no cure has been developed. Despite numerous studies in the field of atherogenesis, there are still huge gaps in already poor understanding of mechanisms that underlie the disease. Inflammation and lipid metabolism violations are undoubtedly the key players, but many other factors, such as oxidative stress, endothelial dysfunction, contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. This overview is focusing on the role of macrophages in atherogenesis, which are at the same time a part of the inflammatory response, and also tightly linked to the foam cell formation, thus taking part in both crucial for atherogenesis processes. Being essentially involved in atherosclerosis development, macrophages and foam cells have attracted attention as a promising target for therapeutic approaches.

Keywords: atherosclerosis; foam cell; inflammation; macrophage.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Variety of macrophage types. These types of macrophages can be observed in atherosclerosis. The stimuli triggering the respective transformation from the monocyte are noted near the arrow.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Modified LDL triggers foam cell formation from different cell types.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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