Abstract
Promotion of reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) is thought to be a major HDL-mediated mechanism for protecting against atherosclerosis. Preclinical studies support the concept that increasing cholesterol efflux from macrophages may confer atheroprotective benefits independently of the plasma HDL-cholesterol concentration. The application of the macrophage-to-feces RCT method in genetically engineered mice has provided evidence that this major HDL property correlates closely with changes in atherosclerosis susceptibility. This chapter provides details on the methodologies currently used to measure in vitro cholesterol efflux from macrophages or in vivo macrophage-specific RCT. The general principles and techniques described herein may be applied to measure the in vitro cholesterol efflux capacity of human serum in macrophage cultures and to evaluate the effect of different experimental pathophysiological conditions or the efficacy of different therapeutic strategies on the modulation of in vivo macrophage-RCT in mice.
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Acknowledgments
This work was partly funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action BM0904, Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, CP13-00070 (to J.J.), FIS 11-0176 (to F.V-B.), and FIS 12-00291 (to J.C.E-G). CIBER de Diabetes y Enfermedades Metabólicas Asociadas is an Instituto de Salud Carlos III Project. JJ is recipient of a Miguel Servet Type 1 contract. The Wihuri Research Institute is maintained by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation.
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Escolà-Gil, J.C., Lee-Rueckert, M., Santos, D., Cedó, L., Blanco-Vaca, F., Julve, J. (2015). Quantification of In Vitro Macrophage Cholesterol Efflux and In Vivo Macrophage-Specific Reverse Cholesterol Transport. In: Andrés, V., Dorado, B. (eds) Methods in Mouse Atherosclerosis. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1339. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2929-0_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2929-0_15
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