Fig. 4.

Proportion of hepatic and intestinal cholesterol present in esterified form in Lal^+/+ and Lal^−/− mice given ezetimibe in their diet from 21 to 50 days. Those mice described in the legend for Fig. 1 that were not used for cholesterol synthesis measurements were used for determining several parameters including the proportion of hepatic and intestinal cholesterol present in esterified form as illustrated above. The concentrations of unesterified and esterified cholesterol were determined in aliquots of liver and the entire small intestine as described in Materials and Methods. The data were expressed in two ways. The total cholesterol concentrations (mg/ g wet weight of tissue) and the fraction of the total present in esterified form for the liver and small intestine are shown in A and C, respectively. The whole organ cholesterol contents and the proportion of each that was esterified in the liver and small intestine are illustrated in B and D, respectively. Values are the mean ± SEM of data from 6 mice in each group. Different letters (a-c) denote statistically significant (p<0.05) differences in the total cholesterol (ie esterified plus unesterified) concentrations (A and C) and contents (B and D) as determined by 2-way ANOVA with genotype and treatment as variables.