Banaszak Leonard J, Ranatunga Wasantha K
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Ann Med. 2008;40(4):253-67. doi: 10.1080/07853890701813070.
Atherosclerosis is a widespread disease caused by the deposition of lipids on arterial walls. Such lipid plaques in coronary arteries can be fatal. Although many factors related to diet, life-style, etc. contribute to the worsening of the ailment, the primary cause, the lipids in the circulatory system, come from a series of low-density lipoproteins. These lipoproteins are necessary for the transport of lipids to and from different organs. It would be valuable to medicine and the field of drug design if a more detailed understanding of the organization of lipid and protein in these molecules were available. Unfortunately because of heterogeneity in their size and lipid composition, all classes of the low-density serum lipoproteins appear to be not amenable to the most widely used method for obtaining detailed atomic data - X-ray crystallography. However there appears to be a recently identified homolog that is relatively homogeneous, and crystal structures have been obtained. Used as a molecular model, the homolog serves as a source of conformational information that might help to unravel the processes involved in the lipid loading of the low-density lipoproteins. The review attempts to give a brief summary of the structural biology of the serum low-density lipoproteins relative to the molecular model of lipovitellin.
动脉粥样硬化是一种由脂质沉积在动脉壁上引起的广泛疾病。冠状动脉中的这种脂质斑块可能是致命的。尽管许多与饮食、生活方式等相关的因素会导致病情恶化，但主要原因，即循环系统中的脂质，来自一系列低密度脂蛋白。这些脂蛋白对于脂质在不同器官之间的运输是必需的。如果能更详细地了解这些分子中脂质和蛋白质的组织情况，将对医学和药物设计领域具有重要价值。不幸的是，由于低密度血清脂蛋白在大小和脂质组成上的异质性，所有类型的低密度血清脂蛋白似乎都不适用于获取详细原子数据的最广泛使用的方法——X射线晶体学。然而，最近似乎发现了一种相对同质的同源物，并已获得其晶体结构。作为分子模型，该同源物可作为构象信息的来源，有助于阐明低密度脂蛋白脂质加载过程中涉及的机制。本文试图简要总结血清低密度脂蛋白相对于卵黄脂磷蛋白分子模型的结构生物学。
