CD36 Is Significantly Correlated with Adipophilin in Human Carotid Lesions and Inversely Correlated with Plasma ApoAI

Figure 5

Hypothetical representation of OxLDL influx and inhibition of cholesterol efflux in carotid resident macrophages. In the presence of high expression of CD36 in plaque lesion areas, the observed strong correlation between CD36, SRA, and ADFP suggests that carotid lesion resident macrophages are subjected on the one hand to greatly enhanced OxLDL uptake by CD36 and SRA and on the other to inhibition of cholesterol efflux by ADFP. The cholesterol efflux from resident macrophages is probably even further reduced as indicated by the inverse correlation of CD36 expression with plasma cholesterol acceptor ApoAI.