Figure 6. Defective intracellular free cholesterol (FC) trafficking in ABCA1 deficient hepatocytes.

Hepatocytes (n=3 per treatment) were isolated from chow-fed, male mice and incubated with [³H]-cholesteryl oleate-radiolabeled low density lipoprotein (LDL tracer) for 5 h at 18°C. (A) After the 5 h pulse, cell-associated [³H]-total cholesterol (TC) and (B) %FC were quantified. (C) After incubation with LDL tracer, cells were chased for 0, 15, 30, and 90 min at 37°C and then treated with 3 mM methyl-β-cyclodextrin (MβCD) for 5 min at 37°C to extract plasma membrane (PM) [³H]-FC. Results are representative of 2 separate experiments.