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(Hypertension. 1999;34:e10.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.

Letters to the Editor - Web

Regulatory Natural Antibodies in Hypertension?

Hwee-Ming Cheng; Shabana Aafaqi; Choon-Kook Sam

Department of Physiology, Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Malaya, Lumpur, Malaysia

	Introduction

 
To the Editor:

We read with interest the recent report by Wu et al¹ on the reduction of both IgG and IgM autoantibodies to oxidized LDL (OxLDL) in individuals with borderline hypertension compared with normotensive controls. We would like to extend the implication of their data with results from our own studies of natural antibodies in healthy persons.

We recently detected in all normal human serum (NHS), natural antibodies to oxysterols (including cholesterol epoxide, 7keto-, 19hydroxy-, and 7hydroxy- cholesterol), which are main components of LDL that have undergone oxidative modification.² The consistent presence of anti-oxysterol (and by extension, anti-OxLDL) was postulated to be important in regulating the concentration and bioactivity of OxLDL (which comes from either a dietary source or from in vivo oxidation³ ), which is thought to be involved in endothelial dysfunction and other events in the atherogenic process. The lowered serum anti-OxLDL in Wu et al’s study might therefore be related to this suggestion.

An additional role of natural antibodies in regulating blood pressure is also indicated by the finding of natural antibodies that recognize renin, angiotensin II, and catecholamines.^{4 5 6} Diet appears to influence this natural humoral immunoreactivity. We have also observed autoantibodies to aldosterone in normal subjects. In an ELISA system, all eleven NHS that were tested contained specific IgG and IgA, and 8 of the 11 sera also had IgM antialdosterone antibodies (S.A. et al, unpublished data, 1999).

Natural antibodies are thought to function as immunotransporters in addition to being involved in the physiological clearance . . . [Full Text of this Article]