A bacterium which can grow in blood vessels may contribute to coronary heart disease by blocking the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart, say researchers. A quarter of deaths in Britain are due to coronary heart disease.
Charlotte Gaydos and her colleagues at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and the University of Louisville grew the common bacterium Chlamydia pneumoniae for the first time in the laboratory, in smooth muscle cells taken from the aorta of a human donor. The aorta carries blood away from the heart, and its cells are similar to those of the coronary arteries.
C. pneumoniae has previously been found in plaques - clumps of tissue and debris that can block the coronary arteries - removed from patients, but this is the first demonstration that it may actually grow in the arteries. The discovery was announced at this year's General Meeting of ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.