Pathological Analysis Of Coronary Atherosclerosis In Watanabe Heritable Hyperlipidemic Rabbits With Special Reference To Long-term Effect Of Plasma Apo (a) And Hypercholesterolemia

Lipoprotein[Lp(a)] has been noticed as isolated risk factor of coronary heart disease(CHD) in recent years. Studies in Lp(a), however, is based on epidemiology or clinical ecsomatics at present, also many details about Lp(a) is unknown in what is its direct role to atherosclerosis, significance in pathology, and how to play a role in biology.However, it is unknown the long-term effect of apo (a) on the development of atherosclerosis (mainly early stage lesions). Lp (a) is naturally present exclusively in Old World monkeys and humans, the physiological functions of Lp (a) has not been defined. This study was designed to evaluate the long-term effects of hypercholesterolemia and Lp (a) on the development of coronary atherosclerosis in Wahanabe heritable hyperlipidemic (WHHL) rabbits, to further study the mechanism of roles of Lp(a) and lipid in the process of atherosclerosis.Lp (a) closely resembles to low density lipoproteins (LDL) in both lipid composition and the presence of apolipoprotein (apo) B-100 but Lp (a) contains a additional and unique glycoprotein, apo (a) which is associated with apoB-100 through a disulfide bond. We generated transgenic (Tg) WHHL rabbits expressing human apolipoprotein (a) in the liver and compared them with non-Tg WHHL rabbits aged 2 years (fed a standard chow diet). WHHL rabbits have defective LDL receptor function and develop hypercholesterolemia on a chow diet and spontaneous atherosclerosis both in aorta and coronary arteries. We characterized...