FIG. 4.

HDL inhibition of E5531 activity. E5531 at 0, 100, 1,000, and 10,000 nM (final concentrations) was incubated overnight in HBSS (×), plasma (●), HDL (○; 40 mg of cholesterol per dl), LDL (□; 245 mg of cholesterol per dl), or VLDL (▵; 82 mg of cholesterol per dl) and was then added by fivefold dilution to human whole blood followed by the addition of 10 ng of LPS per ml (final concentration). This reaction mixture was incubated for 3 h, and plasma samples were analyzed for TNF-α as described in the Materials and Methods section.