Atherosclerosis is an Autoimmune Disease

In autoimmune diseases, the immune system turns against its own body through pathogenic B cells with high affinity or T cells, leading to severe organ damage: Multiple Sclerosis (nervous system paralyses), Diabetes Type 1 (strong risk factor for atherosclerosis requiring lifelong treatment) and Rheumatoid Arthritis (debilitating excruciating deformities of joints) are examples of such clinically important autoimmune diseases.

Despite international research efforts for decades, for atherosclerosis no such defining criteria have been documented. Research by an international consortium - directed by Professor Andreas Habenicht at LMU University Hospital and Professor Changjun Yin at Sun-Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou China - now report in Nature Cardiovascular Research that, according to their findings, atherosclerosis satisfies crucial defining criteria of an autoimmune disease.

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The current research identifies high affinity autoreactive antibodies, which - subsequent to adoptive transfer into mice - accelerates atherosclerosis. One of the autoantibodies is directed against histone 2B.

Following vaccination of the mice with histone 2B, atherosclerosis severity was accelerated. The experimental data in mice could be substantiated in a clinical trial of 495 patients of the general population that were recruited in Guangzhou. Professor Habenicht comments: ”Our data are likely to have transformative power, because they characterize atherosclerosis as an autoimmune disease. They have fundamental and far-reaching implications for future research as they allow to develop new types of diagnostics and immunotherapeutics, before the development of myocardial infarcts and strokes” and then adding a cautionary note: “However, this study is only providing a glimpse into a long and challenging journey”.

Chuankai Zhang et al.: Artery tertiary lymphoid organs encode a pathogenic high-affinity autoantibody − autoantigen pair in atherosclerosis. Nature Cardiovascular Research 2026