Contribution of Intimal Smooth Muscle Cells to Cholesterol Accumulation and Macrophage-Like Cells in Human Atherosclerosis

These findings suggest SMCs contain a much larger burden of the excess cholesterol in human coronary atherosclerosis than previously known, in part, because of their relative inability to release excess cholesterol via ABCA1 in comparison with myeloid lineage cells. Our results also indicate that many cells identified as monocyte-derived macrophages in human atherosclerosis are in fact SMC derived.