Aspirin may do wonders by the induction of immunological self-tolerance against autoimmune atherosclerosis.

Muzammal Hussain, Aqeel Javeed, Muhammad Ashraf, Amjad Riaz, Muhammad Hassan Mushtaq

Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.

Medical hypotheses 2012 Jan

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Induction of immune tolerance is one of the recent novel immunomodulatory strategies to directly intervene the autoimmune-driven atherosclerosis. Aspirin is a prototypic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, which is now being regarded as a life-saver in variety of atherosclerotic cardiovascular complications. Considerable amount of data emerged during last few years clearly suggests that aspirin can cause immunomodulation by several mechanisms, particularly, its ability to induce tolerogenic dendritic cells (DCs) and to upregulate T regulatory (Treg) cells is especially appealing with respect to induction of immunological self-tolerance. Based on this fact, we hypothesize that aspirin, in addition to its anti-inflammatory effect, may also specifically inhibit autoimmune response in atherosclerosis by actively increasing CD4+CD25+FOXP3+Treg cells as well as by inducing tolerogenic DCs which induce hyporesponsiveness in responder naïve T cells. If proved to be correct, this hypothesis will provide an opportunity to medical community with an already available aspirin-based immunotherapeutic approach for inducing immune tolerance against atherosclerosis. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Muzammal Hussain, Aqeel Javeed, Muhammad Ashraf, Amjad Riaz, Muhammad Hassan Mushtaq. Aspirin may do wonders by the induction of immunological self-tolerance against autoimmune atherosclerosis. Medical hypotheses. 2012 Jan;78(1):171-3