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Lipids, Lipoproteins, and Cardiovascular Risk Factors |
1 Department of Advanced Medical Technology and Development, BML, Kawagoe, Saitama, Japan.2 Second Department of Internal Medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.3 Third Department of Internal Medicine, Fukui Medical University, Fukui, Japan.4 Medical Research Council Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, London, UK.5 Cardiovascular Biochemistry Unit, St. Bartholomews and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK.
aAddress correspondence to this author at: Metabolism Research Laboratory, Department of Cardiovascular Genetics, University of Utah College of Medicine, Rm. 218, 410 Chipeta Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108. Fax 801-581-6862; e-mail nazeem{at}ucvg.med.utah.edu.
| Abstract |
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-HDLs, which account for almost all HDL-cholesterol. We studied the strength of the association of CHD with pre-ß-HDL concentrations in Japanese men. Methods: Blood was collected from 42 men with clinical CHD and 44 healthy controls 4070 years of age. Pre-ß-HDL was assayed by crossed immunoelectrophoresis.
Results: Cases had lower HDL-cholesterol (-23%), total apolipoprotein A-I (-26%), and pre-ß-HDL (-55%; all P <0.001) concentrations; lower pre-ß-HDL:
-HDL ratios (-45%; P <0.001); and higher plasma triglycerides (20%; P <0.03) than the controls. On stepwise logistic regression, CHD was associated most strongly with pre-ß-HDL concentrations. On ROC analysis, pre-ß-HDL concentration discriminated between cases and controls better than any other lipoprotein measurement. When plasma was incubated for 16 h at 37 °C, mean (SD) pre-ß-HDL increased by 47 (36)% in controls, but was unchanged in cases (group difference, P <0.001).
Conclusions: Our results suggest that inefficient RCT, secondary to a low pre-ß-HDL concentration and production rate in plasma, contributes to premature CHD in Japanese men with low HDL-cholesterol.
| Introduction |
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The HDLs are a heterogeneous family of lipoproteins. Nascent HDLs, secreted by the liver and small intestine, are discoidal and devoid of core lipids (4). Once in the plasma, they are rapidly converted by lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) into spheroidal particles with a cholesteryl ester (CE)-rich core. These have
electrophoretic mobility, comprise the majority of plasma HDLs, and account for almost all HDL-cholesterol. The primary acceptors of unesterified cholesterol (UC) and phospholipid from the ABCA1 transporters of peripheral cells are a minor subclass of small lipid-free or lipid-poor HDLs that have pre-ß electrophoretic mobility (4)(13). Remodeling of these pre-ß0-HDLs yields discoidal pre-ß1- and pre-ß2-HDLs (4)(13). Esterification of UC in pre-ß2-HDLs by LCAT converts them into CE-rich
-HDLs. CEs are delivered from
-HDLs to hepatocytes by selective uptake by SR-B1 receptors (14), and in humans they are also indirectly delivered after transfer to apolipoprotein (apo) B-containing lipoproteins (7).
The rate-limiting factor for UC efflux appears to vary according to the cell type and conditions. The notion proposed by Glomset and Norum (15), after experiments with erythrocytes, that LCAT activity is rate-limiting probably applies only to the transfer of UC to
-HDLs from cells that are exposed directly to plasma because tissue fluids have little LCAT activity (16). Efflux of UC from cells to pre-ß0-HDLs in tissue fluids exceeds its esterification, leading to accumulation of UC-rich discoidal HDLs in lymph (16)(17). For this pathway of RCT, which presumably applies to arterial smooth muscle and macrophages, ABCA1 transporter function (4)(18)(19) and pre-ß-HDL concentration (20)(21) appear to play critical roles in regulating UC efflux.
Pre-ß0-HDLs are generated during the remodeling of
-HDLs in plasma. One mechanism is catalyzed by phospholipid transfer protein (PLTP), which transfers phospholipids from TGRLs to
-HDLs and induces their fusion, releasing lipid-poor or lipid-free apo A-I (22). In a separate mechanism, CE transfer protein (CETP) transfers triglycerides from TGRLs to
-HDLs in exchange for CEs, followed by hydrolysis of HDL triglycerides by hepatic and other endothelial lipases (23).
Individuals heterozygous for ABCA1 transporter mutations have diminished UC efflux to apo A-I from their fibroblasts in cell culture, low plasma HDL-cholesterol, and premature CHD (18)(24). These findings have established that inefficient RCT by HDLs is a causal factor in atherogenesis in such individuals. However, because ABCA1 transporter mutations are rare and a common genetic variation at the locus contributes only slightly to typical variations in HDL-cholesterol (25)(26), they provide no guidance on the extent to which RCT underlies the association between HDL-cholesterol and CHD in the general population. To address this question, we have tested by casecontrol study the hypothesis that clinically manifested CHD is associated more strongly with pre-ß-HDL concentration than with HDL-cholesterol in Japanese men.
| Materials and Methods |
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laboratory procedures
Samples from cases and controls were processed in an identical manner. Blood was centrifuged for 15 min at 1700g and 4 °C immediately after collection. Multiple aliquots of plasma were taken and transferred directly to a -70 °C freezer. All assays were performed within 3 months. Cholesterol, triglycerides, and HDL-cholesterol were assayed in a Hitachi automated analyzer, by commercial enzymatic assays (Daiichi Pure Chemical Co.). HDL-cholesterol was assayed after precipitation of other lipoproteins with dextran sulfate and MgCl2. LDL-cholesterol was calculated according to Friedewald et al. (27). Plasma total apo A-I and apo B concentrations were quantified by immunoturbidimetry with commercial assays (Daiichi).
Apo A-I in pre-ß- and
-migrating particles was quantified by crossed immunoelectrophoresis (28). Samples were thawed at 4 °C to prevent significant remodeling of HDLs in vitro. In the first dimension, nondenaturing, nonsieving charge-based electrophoresis was performed through a 1% low electroendosmosis agarose slab gel. The second dimension was through the same type of gel impregnated with goat anti-human apo A-I antiserum (Octo), polyethylene glycol 6000, and Tween 20 (to denature the particles). After reactants were removed by soaking the gels in 150 mmol/L NaCl and pressing and drying them, antigenantibody complexes were visualized with Coomassie Blue R250. The proportions of apo A-I in the pre-ß- and
-regions were quantified by cutting and weighing magnified images of the gels, and their absolute values calculated from plasma total apo A-I. The inter- and intraassay CV for pre-ß apo A-I concentration were <5%. This assay measures total apo A-I in all pre-ß-HDL particles of different sizes, is unaffected by storage of plasma at -70 °C for several months, and has been shown in two independent studies to give results that are in excellent agreement with those obtained by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (28)(29).
When human plasma is incubated in vitro, the pre-ß-HDL concentration decreases at first, reaching zero or almost zero after 2 or 3 h, because initial conversion of pre-ß-HDLs to
-HDLs, which is catalyzed by LCAT, exceeds the rate of pre-ß-HDL production from
-HDLs, which is catalyzed by PLTP (20)(30). Thereafter, production of pre-ß-HDLs from
-HDLs exceeds consumption, and the pre-ß-HDL concentration increases for several hours. To obtain a measure of HDL remodeling in plasma, we assayed total pre-ß apo A-I before and after a 16-h incubation at 37 °C. The incubations were started immediately after the samples were thawed at 4 °C. Examples of crossed immunoelectropherograms are shown in Fig. 1
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statistical analyses
Casecontrol comparisons were performed both on the raw data and after adjusting the data to mean age, using regression models to estimate the effects. Triglyceride concentrations were log-transformed. Regression models were used to identify the variables with which the pre-ß apo A-I concentration was associated. In stepwise regression, at each stage the most strongly associated variable was entered into the model until no variables made further contributions. The criterion for entry was significance at the 5% level. Coefficients thus obtained estimate the absolute changes in the dependent variable that are associated with a one-unit change in the independent variable. The product of the coefficient and the SD of an independent variable is the change in the dependent variable associated with the 1 SD change.
Associations of the different measurements with CHD were estimated by logistic regression. Results are expressed as odds ratios for a 1 SD change in the variable. SDs were estimated from the control data. To describe the powers of variables to differentiate between cases and controls, a series of cut-points across the range of each variable was used to classify those with CHD as true positives or false negatives and controls as true negatives or false positives. ROC curves were constructed by plotting sensitivity (true-positive rate) against 1 - specificity (false-positive rate) at each cut-point (31). The higher a curve lies above the line of chance, the better the variable is as a discriminator. Thus, the area under the curve provides a measure of the predictive accuracy of a variable, with possible values ranging from 0.5 for a variable with 0 accuracy to 1.0 for a variable that discriminates perfectly.
| Results |
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apo A-I ratios than the controls. Adjusting for age had no significant effect on these results. In both cases and controls, the pre-ß apo A-I concentration was positively correlated with HDL-cholesterol (Fig. 2
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The cases and controls also differed in the effect of incubation of plasma on pre-ß-HDLs. In all but three of the control samples, the pre-ß apo A-I concentration had increased after 16 h of incubation [absolute change, 124 (96) mg/L; percentage change, 47.3 (35.8)%; P <0.01]. In contrast, in the samples from the cases, the response was more variable, and we observed overall no statistically significant change in pre-ß-HDL [8.3 (51) mg/L and 3.9 (40.4)%]. This casecontrol difference was highly significant (P <0.001). These results are illustrated in Figs. 1
and 3
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The results of univariate logistic regression and ROC analyses are presented in Table 2
. The lipoprotein measurement most strongly associated with CHD by both methods of statistical analysis was the pre-ß apo A-I concentration, followed by the incubation-induced change in pre-ß apo A-I. The area under the ROC curve for baseline pre-ß apo A-I was significantly greater than that under any other curve (vs triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol, and HDL-cholesterol, all P <0.002; vs total apo A-I, P <0.03). Examples of some of the ROC curves are shown in Fig. 4
. Adjustment for age had no significant effect on these results.
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On stepwise logistic regression, CHD was again most strongly associated with baseline pre-ß apo A-I concentration [odds ratio = 0.01 (95% confidence interval, 0.0010.07); P <0.001]. CHD was also independently associated with LDL-cholesterol [3.70 (1.3210.35); P = 0.01] and age [1.96 (1.083.56); P = 0.03]. The odds ratios for pre-ß apo A-I and LDL-cholesterol are for a 1 SD increase; that for age is for an increase of 5 years.
| Discussion |
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Studies in transgenic mice have shown that arterial macrophages contribute little to HDL-cholesterol (8) and that the plasma HDL-cholesterol concentration is not a reliable indicator of the rate of flux of cholesterol from peripheral tissues to the liver (9)(10). Plasma HDL-cholesterol is influenced by the lipolysis of TGRLs, by the transfer of CEs to apo B-containing lipoproteins via CETP (7), and by the activity of the ABCA1 transporter in liver cells (19). For these reasons, no conclusion can be drawn about the contribution of RCT to protection against atherosclerosis in the general population from the inverse relationship between CHD incidence and HDL-cholesterol.
The most striking finding of this study was the strength of the negative association of CHD with pre-ß apo A-I concentration. This was stronger than the association of CHD with HDL-cholesterol or any other lipoprotein measurement and was independent of all other variables and age. In addition, the ability of pre-ß apo A-I to discriminate between cases and controls, as measured by ROC analysis, was greater than that of any other measurement. Although pre-ß-HDLs represent only a small proportion of total HDLs and account for only a trace of plasma HDL-cholesterol, they are important physiologically because they include the initial acceptors of UC from cells (4)(13). Therefore, our findings suggest that the antiatherogenic action of HDLs is related, at least in part, to their role in RCT and that this contributes to the inverse relationship of CHD risk with plasma HDL-cholesterol in the general population. In clinical practice the accuracy of CHD risk prediction might be improved by measurement of pre-ß apo A-I. However, a longitudinal study will be needed to confirm or refute this possibility.
Although the sample sizes in this study were small relative to those of a prospective study, it was adequately powered. We had 80% power at the 5% level to detect a difference of 0.6 SD in any variable between cases and controls. The observed differences were much greater than this:
1 SD for HDL-cholesterol and 2 SD for pre-ß-HDL. The number of individuals does not affect the interpretation of the area under ROC curves. It does affect the precision of the estimate, however, for which reason we have presented confidence intervals for all estimates. Taking into account the numbers of participants, the estimates of SE were 2.5% for a ROC area of 0.95 for pre-ß-HDLs and 5.2% for an area of 0.76 for HDL-cholesterol. We had 90% power at the 5% significance level to detect a 20% difference between the areas under two ROC curves (assuming areas of 0.95 and 0.75).
There are two published CHD casecontrol studies of pre-ß-HDLs. Miida et al. (33) found significantly higher concentrations in cases. However, they studied only 20 individuals in each group, both of mixed gender, and provided little information about clinical procedures, selection criteria, or drug therapy. Asztalos et al. (34) found no significant difference in pre-ß apo A-I concentrations between 76 cases and 79 controls. However, in this study the cases were very heterogeneous, including patients with a history of myocardial infarction, coronary artery bypass graft surgery, transluminal coronary angioplasty, documented disease on coronary angiography, or angina with a positive stress test. Apart from the fact that individuals on lipid-lowering drugs were excluded, no other information was provided about drug therapy, except that an unspecified number of the cases were taking beta-blockers. Furthermore, Asztalos et al. used arbitrary cutoff values for body mass index and lipoproteins and applied these differentially to cases and controls. In the controls, LDL-cholesterol had to be between the 10th and 90th centiles, HDL-cholesterol had to be >250 mg/L and below the 95th centile, triglycerides had to be below the 95th centile, and body mass index had to be <32 kg/m2. In the cases, no cutoffs were used for LDL or HDL, but that for triglycerides was 4000 mg/L and that for body mass index was 35 kg/m2. With the exception of one individual who was excluded on the basis of an extremely high triglyceride concentration, we did not use cutoffs and applied all selection criteria equally to cases and controls.
An additional consideration when comparing the outcome of our study with those of Miida et al. (33) and Asztalos et al. (34) is that whereas we quantified apo A-I under denaturing conditions, both of the above studies used nondenaturing two-dimensional agarose/polyacrylamide gradient gel electropheresis followed by Western blotting with polyclonal anti-apo A-I. Although this is an excellent qualitative procedure, it has never been shown to accurately quantify pre-ß apo A-I, and to our knowledge has never been cross-referenced with an alternative procedure for assaying pre-ß-HDLs. Because affinities of polyclonal antibodies for apo A-I are affected by its conformation, which differs among HDL subclasses (13), assays on nondelipidated particles might not be quantitative. None of the two-dimensional polyacrylamide gradient gel electropheresis/Western blotting methods described to date involves treatment of the particles before, during, or after the electrotransfer process with an agent that would ensure normalization of apo A-I epitopes in different HDLs. Also to be considered is the possibility that some HDLs may be lost during the electrotransfer step. Although treatment of the membrane with glutaraldehyde (34) should prevent losses after electrotransfer, some losses may already have occurred. We have shown in two independent studies that the pre-ß apo A-I concentration measured by our assay over a wide range of values in plasma and lymph is in good agreement with that obtained by high-performance size-exclusion chromatography (28)(29).
In conclusion, we present evidence that the metabolic basis of the low pre-ß-HDL concentration in our CHD cases may have been a low net production rate in plasma. Whereas pre-ß apo A-I increased by a mean of almost 50% when control plasma was incubated for 16 h, no change was observed in samples from the cases. The change in pre-ß-HDL during incubation is the net effect of two opposing processes: conversion of pre-ß-HDLs to
-HDLs, catalyzed by LCAT, and production of new pre-ß-HDLs during the remodeling of
-HDLs. Initially, the former process exceeds the latter, lowering the pre-ß-HDL concentration (20)(30). After 2 or 3 h, the opposite is the case, leading to a progressive accumulation of pre-ß-HDLs. Theoretically, the casecontrol difference in incubation-induced change could have been attributable to one or more of at least three factors: low PLTP activity (reducing the production of pre-ß-HDLs from
-HDLs), high LCAT activity (increasing the conversion of pre-ß-HDLs to
-HDLs), and/or a difference in particle composition (affecting either process). Low CETP activity might also have contributed, although the importance of CETP activity in the determination of pre-ß-HDL concentration is not clear (35). Notwithstanding the fact that a 16-h incubation of plasma in vitro is far removed from the physiologic situation in vivo, our findings raise the possibility that there is an abnormality of HDL remodeling in many patients with CHD and low HDL-cholesterol. Additional work will be needed to determine its nature and to confirm that it precedes the onset of CHD.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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2 Nonstandard abbreviations: CHD, coronary heart disease; RCT, reverse cholesterol transport; TGRL, triglyceride-rich lipoprotein; LCAT, lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase; CE, cholesteryl ester; UC, unesterified cholesterol; apo, apolipoprotein; PLTP, phospholipid transfer protein; and CETP, cholesteryl ester transfer protein. ![]()
| References |
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electrophoretic mobilities. J Lipid Res 1992;33:1807-1816.[Abstract]
The following articles in journals at HighWire Press have cited this article:
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M. Suzuki, H. Wada, S. Maeda, K. Saito, S. Minatoguchi, K. Saito, and M. Seishima Increased Plasma Lipid-Poor Apolipoprotein A-I in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease Clin. Chem., January 1, 2005; 51(1): 132 - 137. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
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