Ricerc@Sapienza

Ischemic disease is currently the most important cause of heart failure, which is considered a major public health problem. Consequently, the best prevention for this type of heart disease is to reduce recurrent episodes of coronary instability. Recently, numerous studies have shown the existence of a very important link between the intestinal microbiota and the onset of cardiovascular diseases including atherosclerosis. In particular, it has been shown that metabolites produced by the microbiota and derived from the diet such as TMAO can promote the onset of atherosclerosis and increase the risk of thrombosis. Therapeutic approaches can be represented by personalized nutritional interventions, use of probiotics and / or probiotics or specific inhibitors of TMAO precursors. Considering the latter approach, agents capable of inhibiting the cascade of reactions that lead to the formation of TMAO should also have other beneficial effects such as reducing the decline in renal function and the progression to heart failure. Further, the role of microbiome in plaque instability is still unknown.
The overall goal of the present research project is to verify whether atherosclerosis susceptibility is transmitted via gut microbial transplantation from patients with stable and unstable plaques to ApoE KO mice and suggest a potential therapeutic approach for the prevention of atherosclerosis.