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Synthetic HDL Could Fight Heart Disease

FRIDAY, Jan. 30 (HealthDay News) -- A synthetic high-density lipoprotein (HDL) -- the "good" cholesterol -- may hold promise for combating chronically high cholesterol levels and the deadly cardiovascular disease it can cause.

The synthetic HDL, created by Northwestern University researchers, is close in size to natural HDL with a near-matching general surface composition. It also has the ability to bind irreversibly to cholesterol.

"We have designed and built a cholesterol sponge. The synthetic HDL features the basics of what a great cholesterol drug should be," study co-leader Chad A. Mirkin, a Northwestern professor of medicine and also materials science and engineering, said in a news release issued by the school.

The findings were published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

With a gold nanoparticle as its core, synthetic HDL has two lipid layers covered by the main component of natural HDL -- the APOA1 protein.

"Cholesterol is essential to our cells, but chronic excess can lead to dangerous plaque formation in our arteries," study co-leader Dr. Shad Thaxton, an assistant professor of urology in Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine, said in the same news release.