Lipid Metabolic Pool in Subcellular Fractions of Rabbit and Human Atherosclerotic Lesions

Abstract

The intracellular accumulation of lipids is an early feature of atherogenesis and the active involvement of the arterial wall in this process is well established (Day and Wahlqvist, 1968, Wahlqvist et al. 1969). The intracellular lipid is present as lipid droplets, which differ in composition from the extracellular lipid (Smith et al., 1967). Two types of lipid droplets have been demonstrated in human atherosclerotic lesions, one isotropic, the other anisotropic (Lang and Insull, 1970). On the basis of electronmicroscopic studies it has been suggested, that the anisotropic droplets are formed from the cell membrane and are subsequently transformed into isotropic droplets and that these changes are associated with the esterification of free cholesterol (Weller et al., 1968).

These studies were in part supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the SFB 90 Cardiovasculäres System.