Macrophage PSRC1 attenuates atherosclerosis via extracellular vesicle-mediated MBD2 delivery to induce PCSK9 promoter methylation in hepatocytes
Tongwei Wu, Hui Huang, Xiaoqian Zhang, Xinyi Feng, Weiming Luo, Lilong Lin, Dan Liu, Hangyu Pan, Shaopeng Wang, Jierong Zhang, Xianyi Zhang, Zhigang Guo, Mengzhuo Yin, Shiping Cao, Yanan Zhang · 2026
Read Macrophage PSRC1 attenuates atherosclerosis via extracellular vesicle-mediated MBD2 delivery to induce PCSK9 promoter methylation in hepatocytes by Tongwei Wu, Hui Huang, Xiaoqian Zhang, Xinyi Feng, Weiming Luo, Lilong Lin, Dan Liu, Hangyu Pan, Shaopeng Wang, Jierong Zhang, Xianyi Zhang, Zhigang Guo, Mengzhuo Yin, Shiping Cao, Yanan Zhang (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13479547.txt.
Description
Wu and colleagues trace an unexpected courier route between immune cells and the liver in 2026 that lowers cholesterol and slows artery plaque. Macrophages, the immune system's scavenger cells, package a protein called MBD2 into tiny released bubbles when they carry enough of another protein, PSRC1. Those bubbles travel to liver cells, where MBD2 helps switch off the PCSK9 gene, a master raiser of blood cholesterol.
In atherosclerotic conditions, macrophage PSRC1 fell and liver PCSK9 rose in mirror image, in both patients with coronary disease and mouse models studied. Deleting PSRC1 only in macrophages was enough to reproduce high cholesterol and faster plaque growth seen in whole-body knockout mice. Injecting MBD2-loaded bubbles into plaque-prone mice lowered liver PCSK9 and plasma cholesterol and made plaques more stable, so the authors propose engineered bubbles as a therapy route.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Tongwei Wu, Hui Huang, Xiaoqian Zhang, Xinyi Feng, Weiming Luo, Lilong Lin, Dan Liu, Hangyu Pan, Shaopeng Wang, Jierong Zhang, Xianyi Zhang, Zhigang Guo, Mengzhuo Yin, Shiping Cao, Yanan Zhang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 59 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |