Dynamic Aspects of Cholesterol Ester Metabolism in Rabbits with Atherosclerosis

Abstract

Rabbits were fed a normal stock diet supplemented with 1 g of cholesterol/day; at 58 days the animals received a meal labeled with cholesterol-4-C14 and were then killed at 1, 3 and 5 days. Rabbits with atherosclerosis showed a high percentage of oleic acid and a low percentage of linoleic acid in their aorta, liver and serum cholesterol esters. The specific activity data of the individual aorta and liver cholesterol esters indicate that the 3 major classes of cholesterol esters (saturated, monounsaturated and linoleate) may have different turnover rates. At 1 day, the aorta C14-cholesterol esters had a composition similar to the C14-cholesterol esters present in the serum. After 1 day the composition of the C14-cholesterol esters in the aorta showed a general shift toward the total cholesterol ester fatty acid pattern. The observations of this study support the view that there is an indiscriminate deposition of cholesterol esters into the aorta from the plasma and that the aorta determines the final composition of its cholesterol esters by a selective retention of saturated and monounsaturated esters.