Fig. 2.

Rates of hepatic and intestinal cholesterol and fatty acid synthesis in Lal^+/+ and Lal^−/− mice given ezetimibe in their diet from 21 to 50 days of age. As described in Materials and Methods, these mice received on i.p. injection of [³H]water and were anesthetized and exsanguinated 1 h later. The liver, small intestine and remaining carcass were taken for the measurement of [³H]sterol content. For the liver and small intestine, the content of [³H]fatty acids was also determined. The cholesterol synthesis rates represent the nmol of water incorporated into digitonin-precipitable sterols per gram wet weight of tissue (A and D), or per whole organ (B and E) per h. The rates of hepatic and intestinal fatty acid synthesis (C and F, respectively) are expressed per gram wet weight of tissue per h. Values are the mean ± SEM of data from 4 mice of each genotype fed the basal diet alone, and 5 Lal^+/+ and 5 Lal^−/− mice given ezetimibe. Different letters (a-c) denote statistically significant (p<0.05) differences as determined by 2-way ANOVA with genotype and treatment as variables.