Splenic immunity and atherosclerosis: a glimpse into a novel paradigm?

Atherosclerosis is a chronic disease that involves a complex interaction of the artery wall and its cellular elements, lipoproteins, and circulating blood elements. Although hypercholesterolemia is a prerequisite for the initiation of atherogenesis, once initiated, the atherosclerotic lesion takes on many of the characteristics of a chronic inflammatory process (1, 2). In particular, there is now strong and growing evidence in hypercholesterolemic animal models that the immune system is specifically activated by atherosclerosis-associated antigens and that both innate and adaptive immunity can significantly modulate subsequent lesion development.