Lipoprotein receptors in arterial tissue: relation to the pathology of atherosclerosis.

The molecular and cellular physiology of several classes of lipoprotein receptors has been extensively characterized in vitro. However, the evidence that these lipoprotein receptors mediate the morphological events characteristic of atherosclerotic development in vivo is limited. The increasing availability of reagents to characterize receptor mRNA and protein will enable the definition of receptors involved in atherosclerotic lesion progression. These studies should set the stage for the more difficult task of modulating lipoprotein receptors to determine whether their activity is a critical component of atherogenesis.