Fig. 1.

Comparison between the actual lipoprotein distribution of apoC-III and the distribution inferred from the one-pool concept of plasma apoC-III metabolism. There are on average ∼20–50 apoC-III molecules on each VLDL particle. About 50% of VLDL contain apoC-III (CIII+), and the other half of VLDL do not contain apoC-III at all (CIII−). The apoC-III distribution pattern within VLDL has an inverse bell shape (left panel). On the other hand, the one-pool concept of plasma apoC-III metabolism suggests that apoC-III exchanges freely and randomly within VLDL and HDL and also between VLDL and HDL. In this scenario, the vast majority of VLDL and HDL would contain some apoC-III molecules and would have a normal distribution pattern (right panel). There would be few VLDL or HDL containing large numbers of apoC-III molecules and one would be unlikely to find lipoproteins without apoC-III.