Some factors influencing the interactions of plasma lipoproteins with arterial elastin.

Elastin is a major component of the artery wall and, because of their involvement in atherosclerosis, the interaction of lipoproteins with elastin may be of considerable importance. Previous studies of the interactions between elastin and lipoproteins have been carried out in idealised systems which do not retain the structure of the elastin. In this study we have measured the uptake of both low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) by arterial preparations and have tried to assess the importance of the different steps of preparation on the results. By comparing elastin from different sources and different degrees of extraction and delipidation we have tried to make some inferences about the nature of the interaction between elastin and lipoproteins in the hope that we can better understand the importance of this interaction in vivo.