Abstract 317: CETP Alters Routes of Total and HDL-derived Cholesterol Elimination in Mice

Objective: Transintestinal cholesterol excretion (TICE) is an alternative pathway to hepatobiliary secretion for cholesterol elimination. The cholesterol donors contributing to this pathway in plasma remain unclear, but appear to include both ApoA and ApoB lipoproteins. Cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) facilitates the transport of cholesteryl esters and triglycerides between lipoproteins in plasma. Our study was aimed at determining the impact of CETP on cholesterol elimination pathways in mice. Methods and Results: We compared both hepatobiliary and intestinal cholesterol secretion rates in male wild-type (WT) and CETP transgenic (TG) mice at age of 12 weeks. WT and TG mice did not differ either biliary or intestinal cholesterol secretion rates when maintained on a standard chow diet. However, TG mice showed increased biliary cholesterol secretion rates and decreased intestinal cholesterol secretion rates compared to the WT group in response to high fat, high cholesterol Western diet. We next de...