Fate of intravenously administered particulate and lipoprotein cholesterol in the rat

• Main Authors: Åke Nilason, D.B. Zilversmit
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 1972-01-01
• Series: Journal of Lipid Research
• Subjects: cholesterol particles; serum lipoprotein; colloidal chromic phosphate; phagocytosis; cell isolation; liver macrophages
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022227520394335

Unesterified radioactive cholesterol, both bound to serum lipoproteins and dispersed in ethanol–saline, was injected into bile fistula and intact rats. Due to phagocytosis, mainly by the liver macrophages, intravenously injected cholesterol in ethanol–saline disappears from the bloodstream significantly faster than lipoprotein-bound cholesterol.Soon after the initial phagocytosis, the particulate isotopic cholesterol started to reappear in blood, reaching a maximal radioactivity in blood 10–24 hr after injection. Although the radioactive cholesterol reappears in serum in both esterified and unesterified form, it is likely that cholesterol is released from the phagocytic cells as unesterified cholesterol which is then esterified intravascularly or at other sites. In the bile fistula rats, somewhat more of the lipoprotein cholesterol than of the particulate cholesterol appeared in bile early after injection. However, cholesterol turnover calculated from a twopool model was the same for rats injected with lipoprotein-bound or particulate cholesterol.