Vascular lipid accumulation, lipoprotein oxidation, and macrophage lipid uptake in hypercholesterolemic zebrafish.

ABSTRACT: Lipid accumulation in arteries induces vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis, the major cause of heart attack and stroke in humans. Extreme hyperlipidemia induced in mice and rabbits enables modeling many aspects of human atherosclerosis, but microscopic examination of plaques is possible only postmortem. Here we report that feeding adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) a high-cholesterol diet (HCD) resulted in hypercholesterolemia, remarkable lipoprotein oxidation, and fatty streak formation in the arteries. Feeding an HCD supplemented with a fluorescent cholesteryl ester to optically transparent fli1:EGFP zebrafish larvae in which endothelial cells express green fluorescent protein (GFP), and using confocal microscopy enabled monitoring vascular lipid accumulation and the endothelial cell la

SUBMITTER: Stoletov K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2834250 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature