Figure 6. Bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) show altered cholesterol metabolism under hypoxic conditions.
A-F, BMDM cells from apoE-/- mice were incubated under hypoxic conditions (1% O2) for 24h. Shown are the resulting levels of total cholesterol from cells that were non-loaded (A) or loaded with cholesterol-cyclodextrin complexes (B). C, The percentage of total cholesterol that was cholesteryl ester was decreased in BMDM loaded with cholesterol under hypoxic conditions. D, BMDM also showed elevated triglycerides under hypoxic conditions. E, BMDM cells were used to measure free cholesterol efflux to apoAI, which is the acceptor for ABCA-1, under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. F, BMDM cells rendered hypoxic were stained for ABCA-1 using confocal microscopy and overlaid with phase contrast image using 63X objective. The arrows indicate the plasma membrane boundary. Experiments were done twice in triplicate (A-E) and statistical significance is indicated by * for p<0.05, ** for p<0.01 and ***p<0.001.