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Journal of Lipid Research, Vol. 46, 687-696, April 2005 Physiological importance of SR-BI in the in vivo metabolism of human HDL and LDL in male and female mice
Département des Sciences Biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada H3C 3P8 Published, JLR Papers in Press, January 16, 2005. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M400165-JLR200
1 To whom correspondence should be addressed. e-mail: brissette.louise{at}uqam.ca in re-
The physiological role of murine scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) was evaluated by in vivo clearances of human HDL3 and LDL in normal and SR-BI knockout (KO) mice. In normal mice, cholesteryl esters (CEs) were removed faster than proteins, indicating a selective uptake process from both HDL3 and LDL. SR-BI KO mice showed 80% losses of HDL-CE selective uptake and the complete loss of LDL-CE selective uptake in the first phase of clearance. However, the second phase was characterized by an acceleration of CE disappearance in SR-BI KO mice. Thus, SR-BI is the only murine receptor mediating HDL-CE selective uptake, whereas a SR-BI-independent pathway specific to LDL can rescue SR-BI deficiency. The analysis of LDL recovered 3 h after injection in mice from different genotypes revealed that LDLs are significantly depleted in CE (reduction from 19% to 50% of the CE/protein ratios). A smaller LDL size in comparison with that of noninjected LDL was also detectable but was more evident for LDL recovered from normal mice. All LDL preparations migrate faster than noninjected LDL on agarose-barbital gels. Thus, both SR-BI-dependent and -independent pathways lead to substantial changes in LDL.
Supplementary key words scavenger receptor class B type I liver low density lipoprotein high density lipoprotein cholesteryl ester selective uptake
Numerous epidemiological studies have demonstrated that the risk of developing coronary artery diseases is directly related to plasma concentrations of LDL cholesterol (1) and inversely associated with plasma levels of HDL (2). Plasma levels of LDL cholesterol are in large part regulated via the LDL receptor (LDLr), which mediates the clearance of LDL through a well-defined process involving endocytosis and degradation of the entire LDL particle (3, 4). In contrast, clearance of HDL cholesterol seems to be accomplished by another pathway called selective uptake, which involves the extraction of cholesteryl esters (CEs) from lipoproteins without concomitant degradation of its apolipoproteins (5). Although selective uptake is usually associated with HDL cholesterol, evidence suggests that this pathway may also act on other lipoproteins, such as LDL (69). The scavenger receptor class B type I (SR-BI) is a cell surface receptor that was initially found as a receptor for modified LDL (oxidized or acetylated) and maleylated BSA and was later shown to bind native lipoproteins (5, 10, 11). Although SR-BI can bind LDL with high affinity, attention has mainly been devoted to the relation between SR-BI and HDL, and SR-BI was demonstrated to mediate the selective uptake of HDL-CE in transfected cells (5, 12, 13). The abundance of SR-BI in steroidogenic organs and liver, the principal sites of cholesteryl ester selective uptake in vivo, has also been cited as an indication of SR-BI involvement in HDL metabolism (5, 14). However, the most convincing evidence for a role of SR-BI in HDL metabolism has come from studies using genetically manipulated mice. These studies demonstrated that a disruption of the SR-BI gene generates an increase in total plasma cholesterol levels, which is mainly associated with the appearance of large HDLs enriched in CE and containing less apolipoprotein A-II (apoA-II) and more apoE than normal mouse HDL (15). Similar results were obtained using mice having attenuated hepatic SR-BI expression attributable to a promoter mutation (SR-BIatt mice) (16). Recently Out et al. (17) and Brundert et al. (18) showed that SR-BI is solely responsible for the selective uptake of CE from HDL by the liver and the adrenals in mice. However, these studies did not address the issue of whether SR-BI has a similar importance in male and female mice. This is an important issue because hepatic SR-BI expression has been shown to be weaker among female than male rats; inversely, SR-BII, an alternatively spliced product of the SR-BI gene that only differs in the C-terminal cytoplasmic domain, was higher in female rats (19). Also, injections of high concentrations of estrogens were shown to decrease rat SR-BI expression in parenchymal cells, whereas increasing SR-BI expression in Kupffer cells (20) and administration of pharmacological levels of estrogens produced a decrease in CE selective uptake in rats (21). The physiological role of SR-BI in the metabolism of apoB-containing particles is not yet established. However, it has been suggested by in vitro studies of SR-BI-overexpressing cells (22, 23) and HepG2 cells deficient in SR-BI as well as primary cultures of hepatic cells from SR-BI knockout (KO) male mice (24). The involvement of SR-BI in non-HDL lipoprotein metabolism is also supported by in vivo studies using mice expressing different levels of SR-BI. Transgenic mice overexpressing hepatic SR-BI show lower than normal levels of plasma LDL-cholesterol and apoB and a reduction in VLDL and intermediate density lipoprotein/LDL sizes (2527). This last finding can be explained by a selective lipid uptake of LDL-CE by SR-BI. In view of the results obtained by Ueda et al. (26) showing an accelerated clearance of LDL-protein in SR-BI transgenic mice, it can be suggested that SR-BI leads to some LDL holoparticle uptake and degradation either directly or indirectly. This is supported by the study of Murao et al. (28), which showed a greater degradation of LDL in HEK293 cells overexpressing SR-BI. On the other hand, a recent study using human apoB transgenic mice overexpressing SR-BI demonstrated that plasma apoB concentration was not affected, and a turnover study showed a very small increase of LDL-CE clearance with no difference in LDL-protein disappearance (29). Thus, the physiological impact of SR-BI in vivo on LDL metabolism needs to be further investigated. Our overall goal was to determine in vivo the role of SR-BI in HDL and LDL metabolism in male and female mice. To achieve this, we compared HDL- and LDL-protein and -CE disappearances between normal mice and SR-BI KO mice of both genders. We found that selective uptake from HDL is not influenced by mouse gender and that SR-BI has the same importance in the two genders and is fully responsible for HDL-CE selective uptake. We show for the first time that LDL-CE selective uptake occurs in mice of both genders. Furthermore, our results demonstrate the involvement of normal mouse SR-BI in this pathway. However, the loss of this receptor can be rescued by another pathway in both mouse genders. We also show that LDLs injected in mice are depleted in CE and that they are smaller and show changes in their charges compared with noninjected LDL.
Materials Newborn calf serum and gentamycin were purchased from Life Technologies (Burlington, Ontario, Canada). 1,2-[3H]Cholesteryl ether oleate (50 mCi/mmol) was bought from Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (Laval, Quebec, Canada), and 125I (as sodium iodide; 100 mCi/mmol) was bought from ICN Canada (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Anti-SR-BI polyclonal antibodies were obtained from Novus Biologicals (Littleton, CO), anti-LDLr antibodies were from Research Diagnostics (Flanders, NJ), and goat anti-rabbit IgG coupled to horseradish peroxidase was from Chemicon (Temecula, CA). Enhanced chemiluminescence substrate and Complete Protease Inhibitor Cocktail tablets were from Roche Diagnostics (Laval, Quebec, Canada). Nondenaturing polyacrylamide gradient gels were from Alamo Gels, Inc. (San Antonio, TX).
Animals
Isolation and radiolabeling of lipoproteins Mildly oxidized LDL (OxLDL) was prepared as described previously (34). LDLs (200 µg protein/ml) were incubated with 5 µM CuSO4 at 37°C for 4 h. Mildly OxLDL typically resulted in 1.5-fold increases in electrophoretic mobility relative to native LDL on 0.5% agarose-barbital gels.
Preparation of parenchymal and nonparenchymal cells from mouse livers
Immunoblotting of SR-BI and LDLr
In vivo clearance of HDL3 and LDL Injections into the vena cava were also made. Briefly, normal and KO mice were anesthetized, their abdomens opened, and 20 µg of LDL labeled with [3H]CEt was injected into the inferior vena cava. One hour after injection, the livers were perfused and parenchymal liver cells were isolated. Then, the cells were solubilized and their protein contents and radioactivity were measured.
Other methods
Western blot analysis of hepatic SR-BI and LDLr expression in normal male and female mice Because physiological levels of estradiol are more increased in females than in males, we undertook to examine the expression of this receptor in different subtypes of hepatic cells from normal male and female mice. SR-BI expression was found to be 55% lower in female (P < 0.01) than in male parenchymal cells (Fig. 1A) ; inversely, it was 65% higher in female than in male nonparenchymal cells (P < 0.01) (Fig. 1B). Given that nonparenchymal cells represent less than 10% of the total amount of liver proteins, total hepatic SR-BI expression is therefore higher in males. LDLr levels were similar in female and male cells (data not shown).
Importance of gender-related differences in SR-BI expression in the in vivo catabolism of HDL Lower SR-BI expression in female parenchymal cells could theoretically translate itself into gender differences in HDL metabolism. To verify this possibility, in vivo clearance of the protein or lipid moiety of human HDL3 was examined in normal male and female mice. Plasma FCRs were calculated from plasma decay curves by the use of a two-compartment model (Table 1). Using this model, comparable FCR values for plasma clearance of 125I-HDL3 and [3H] CEt-HDL3 were obtained in male and female animals (Table 1). FCRs generated from the selective uptake data (the difference between [3H]CEt and 125I FCRs) show that a lower level of hepatic SR-BI expression in females did not affect the rate of selective uptake from human HDL3 (Table 1). Experiments were also conducted in heterozygous and homozygous SR-BI KO male and female mice to establish whether the gender affects HDL fate more strongly when SR-BI is half than when it is normal or absent. The loss of SR-BI expression caused a complete loss of selective uptake, as demonstrated by FCR selective uptake data (Table 1). These data show that heterozygous SR-BI KO male mice lost 40% of their ability to selectively take up CE from HDL3, whereas homozygous SR-BI KO male mice lost 80%. No significant differences were found between the FCRs of female and male mice. The only difference found between males and females was that 24 h after HDL injection, CE uptake by the liver of heterozygous SR-BI KO males was as affected as in homozygous SR-BI KO females (Fig. 2A) .
Overall, our work on HDL confirms the loss of CE-selective uptake from HDL observed in SR-BI KO mice by Out et al. (17) and Brundert et al. (18) in male mice; in addition, we show the same phenomenon in females. However, as the results can also reflect a competition by the endogenous HDLs of SR-BI KO mice that are larger and of different composition than those found in normal mice, we engineered in normal mice the in vivo disappearance of [3H]CEt-HDL in the presence of a bolus of HDL from homozygous SR-BI KO and normal mice. The results presented in Fig. 3A show that both types of HDL similarly affect the disappearance of labeled HDL, indicating that HDLs from SR-BI KO mice are not responsible for the observed reduced clearance of HDL-CE in SR-BI KO mice. Thus, our work demonstrates conclusively the importance of SR-BI in HDL-CE selective uptake.
Role of SR-BI in the in vivo catabolism of LDL and importance of gender-related differences in SR-BI expression The results presented in Fig. 4A, B and Table 2 show that CEs from LDL are more rapidly cleared from the plasma than LDL protein in normal males. This clearly indicates the presence of an in vivo mechanism of CE selective uptake from LDL. In SR-BI KO male mice, the rate of removal of CE was also faster than the rate of removal of LDL-protein, indicating selective lipid uptake activity despite the absence of SR-BI expression (Fig. 4A, B). However, the disappearance of CE from LDL in homozygous SR-BI KO male mice was reduced in the first phase of clearance compared with normal mice (Fig. 4B). Indeed, the initial LDL-CE FCR was reduced by 63% in homozygous SR-BI KO male mice compared with normal male mice, and their CE selective uptake was completely abolished, as indicated by the identical removal rate of LDL-CE and proteins (Table 2). After that period, a curve inversion between normal and homozygous SR-BI KO mice was observed (Fig. 4B). This accelerated clearance of CE in homozygous SR-BI KO mice affected the FCR, which was 46% greater in homozygous SR-BI KO mice (Table 2). It is worth noting that curve inversion was not detectable in heterozygous mice (Table 2). Some differences were observed with females (Fig. 4C, D, Table 2). Thus, the initial and total LDL-CE FCRs were 49% and 20% lower, respectively, for normal females than for males. Also, the lack of SR-BI expression in females caused an accelerated elimination of LDL-protein in the first step of clearance (Fig. 4C), as demonstrated by a 60% higher initial FCR in homozygous SR-BI KO female mice compared with normal mice (Table 2). Conversely, the initial catabolism of LDL-CE was unaffected (Fig. 4D, Table 2). This difference in the initial FCR of protein and CE moieties of LDL between normal and homozygous SR-BI KO female mice resulted in the complete loss of CE selective uptake in the last mouse genotype during the first step of clearance. However, when total clearance was considered, homozygous SR-BI KO females showed 70% greater selective uptake activity than normal mice. This was caused by an important acceleration of the elimination of LDL-CE at 20 min after injection in SR-BI KO female mice. Although this inversion was observed in male SR-BI KO mice, it occurred earlier in SR-BI KO female mice. Also, in contrast to the heterozygous males, heterozygous females were not affected, at any time, by the lack of half SR-BI expression, as demonstrated by the FCR values (Table 2). Figure 3B shows that the endogenous pool of HDL in SR-BI KO or normal mice (LDLs are barely affected by the lack of SR-BI) (15) cannot explain our results, because labeled LDL-CEs disappear similarly in the absence or presence of a bolus of HDL from normal or SR-BI KO mice.
Liver uptake of [3H]CEt-LDL was determined 24 h after LDL injection. The results shown in Fig. 2B demonstrate that the loss of SR-BI did not affect the uptake of LDL-CE. However, this was specific to male mice, because CE uptake was significantly reduced in heterozygous and homozygous SR-BI KO mice compared with normal female mice. Intrigued by the lack of effect of SR-BI in LDL-CE uptake by the liver of male mice and interested in defining the contribution of parenchymal and nonparenchymal cells in LDL-CE uptake, we injected LDLs into the vena cava of male mouse liver. One hour later, the liver was perfused, parenchymal and nonparenchymal cells were harvested, and the radioactivity associated with these cells was quantified. Table 3 shows that both cell types were able to take LDL-CE, but when the contribution of each type of cell in the liver was considered, parenchymal cells were involved in 83% of LDL-CE uptake. We also found that 1 h after injection, LDL-CE uptake by liver parenchymal cells was 183% greater in normal mice than in SR-BI KO male mice, whereas SR-BI KO does not affect nonparenchymal activity. From these findings, we conclude that at early times, the lack of parenchymal SR-BI reduces LDL-CE uptake by male mouse liver, but not at later times.
Effect of CE selective uptake activity on LDL As we demonstrated that CEs disappear faster than proteins from LDLs, LDLs were injected in normal and SR-BI KO male mice, recovered after 3 h, isolated, and analyzed. Notably, at most, one-tenth of these LDLs originate from endogenous LDLs, based on calculation from the blood of normal and SR-BI KO mice. Thus, those should not significantly affect our results. Table 4 shows that LDLs that were injected in mice of all genders and genotypes were significantly reduced in their CE content; accordingly, their CE/protein ratios averaged 31% lower than those of noninjected LDLs. There seems to be no significant difference between the CE/protein ratios of LDLs injected into normal and SR-BI KO mice, suggesting that SR-BI-dependent and -independent pathways are as potent for the capture of CEs from LDLs when they are harvested after a 3 h period in mice. An increase in free cholesterol level and free cholesterol-protein ratio was also observed in the LDL preparations derived from SR-BI KO male mice. When analyzed by nondenaturing polyacrylamide gradient gel electrophoresis (NDGGE), we were able to detect a faster migration for LDLs that had been injected in normal female or male mice than for noninjected LDLs (Fig. 5A) . This reduction in size was not detectable for LDLs derived from SR-BI KO mice. LDL sizes were also determined as a function of time after the injection of 125I-LDL in normal and SR-BI KO mice. This experimental setup excludes any contribution of mouse LDL in the electrophoretic pattern and eliminates the need for reisolating injected LDLs. Fig. 5B clearly shows that with time, LDLs injected in normal mice gradually become smaller. Similar results were obtained with SR-BI KO mice. Isolated LDLs were also subjected to electrophoresis on agarose-barbital gels to search for charge changes. The samples were run along with mildly OxLDL. As shown in Fig. 6A , independent of the genotypes or genders, all LDLs migrated between noninjected LDL and mildly OxLDL, including murine LDL. Fig. 6B shows that 125I-LDL contained in the plasma of mice injected with this labeled LDL also migrated faster on agarose-barbital gels than did noninjected 125I-LDL, indicating that the results shown in Fig. 6A are not a consequence of lipoprotein isolation from mouse plasma. Furthermore, Fig. 6B reveals that most of the change in the ability of LDL to migrate on the gel occurs soon after the injection. Thus, overall, these in vivo studies reveal that LDL-CE selective uptake being mediated or not by SR-BI has an impact on LDL composition and physiology.
In accordance with studies conducted with rats (14, 19, 20), we found that the level of expression of SR-BI is higher in male mouse hepatic parenchymal cells and lower in nonparenchymal cells compared with female cells (Fig. 1). Lower SR-BI expression in female parenchymal cells could theoretically translate into gender differences in HDL metabolism, but the similarity in fractional clearance rates of the HDL protein and CE observed between male and female mice clearly proves that this is not the case (Table 1). Our results also show similar levels of hepatic CE uptake between sexes, which suggests either that the expression of SR-BI in female liver parenchymal cells is sufficient to achieve optimal levels of selective uptake or that the low levels of parenchymal SR-BI of female liver are counterbalanced by higher expression in nonparenchymal cells. The first possibility is more likely, given that Pieters et al. (21) previously observed selective uptake to be exerted only by parenchymal cells in the rat. Accordingly, the livers of heterozygous SR-BI KO males that have parenchymal SR-BI expression levels similar to those of normal female livers selectively take up as much CE as normal male livers. However, a minimum level of SR-BI expression appears to be required to ensure optimal liver HDL-CE uptake, because this pathway is reduced in heterozygous females. The nearly total loss of HDL-CE selective uptake observed in homozygous SR-BI KO mice suggests that SR-BI is the only efficient receptor mediating this function in vivo in both mouse genders. Alternatively, the loss of CE uptake that we observed in SR-BI KO mice could be attributed to HDL modifications in these mice (15). Indeed, HDLs were shown to be 30% and 125% richer in CE than those of normal mice in heterozygous and homozygous SR-BI KO mice, respectively (15). Disappearance assays of HDL-CE in normal mice in the presence of a 24-fold excess of HDL isolated from either normal mice or homozygous SR-BI KO mice showed no difference between curves (Fig. 2A). Consequently, we demonstrate for the first time that the endogenous pool of HDL in SR-BI KO mice does not influence the fate of injected human HDL; thus, the FCR data can be irrefutably attributed to the action of SR-BI toward injected HDL. Overall, our work on HDL confirms the recent findings of Out et al. (17) and Brundert et al. (18), extends the knowledge related to mouse genders, and clearly demonstrates that the encountered effect of SR-BI KO on HDL-CE fate is not a consequence of the endogenous HDLs of these mice. The role of SR-BI in the in vivo metabolism of LDL-protein and -CE remains poorly understood. Our study demonstrates the existence of a CE selective uptake mechanism from LDL in normal male mice. Although this pathway is also present in females, the FCR data indicate that selective uptake is faster in males. The low level of SR-BI in female livers suggests that this receptor is indeed responsible for LDL-CE selective uptake. This is supported by kinetic experiments conducted with male heterozygous and homozygous SR-BI KO mice showing an important decrease in the initial plasma clearance of LDL-CE compared with normal mice. It is unlikely that SR-BI KO mouse lipoproteins could explain our results, as LDL concentrations are barely affected by SR-BI gene KO (15, 41), and we showed that the HDLs isolated from either normal or SR-BI KO mice when injected in normal mice in conjunction with LDL do not affect the fate of LDL-CE. Furthermore, the human LDLs that we injected can also be considered as a mouse LDL tracer, because Webb et al. (29) have shown that human and mouse LDLs behave similarly toward SR-BI. Although there was no removal of LDL-CE in SR-BI KO male and female mice during the first phase of clearance, the selective uptake mechanism became visible when total FCRs were considered. This strongly suggests the existence of a SR-BI-independent pathway, at least in homozygous SR-BI KO mice. Although the SR-BI-independent pathway shows a low efficiency in taking up CE during the initial clearance, as seen in homozygous SR-BI KO mice, its ability becomes more important with time. Indeed, a complete inversion was observed between normal and homozygous SR-BI KO mouse CE-disappearance curves. Such a phenomenon was not observed with HDLs (data not shown); thus, it is specific to LDL metabolism. This curve inversion suggests that the SR-BI-independent pathway has a greater capacity to deplete CEs from LDLs when those are not processed by SR-BI. SR-BI-independent pathways for LDL-CE selective uptake were suggested in the past by in vitro assays using CHO (42), COS (22), and Y1 2/3 adrenal cells (43). The first study revealed the importance of lipoprotein lipase, and the last showed a role for LDLr-related protein and apoE. It is possible that one or both of these pathways is (are) responsible for the non-SR-BI LDL-CE selective uptake pathway that we encountered. Given that the loss of SR-BI in females causes a more important catabolism of LDL-CE compared with homozygous SR-BI KO males and that the expression of CD36 is higher in female than in male human and rat livers (44), it is possible that CD36 is the SR-BI-independent pathway that we detected. Furthermore, considering the existence of SR-BI-dependent and -independent pathways for LDL-CE selective uptake, it is not surprising that the liver of male SR-BI KO mice accumulates as much LDL-CE as that of normal mice. Although SR-BI KO females showed higher SR-BI-independent activity, we noted a significant decrease of LDL-CE uptake by their livers. The reasons for this are obscure, but they may indicate that in female mice deficient in SR-BI a greater uptake occurs by a tissue/organ that was not investigated in this study. If this is true, it will highlight another difference between murine genders.
To further demonstrate that LDL-CE selective uptake occurs in vivo, injected LDLs in normal and SR-BI KO mice were recovered and analyzed. We found that SR-BI-dependent and -independent pathways are able to capture CEs from LDLs ( Furthermore, as the LDL/HDL ratio is higher in humans than in rodents, it is tempting to speculate that under physiological conditions, CE selective uptake plays a greater role in human than in mouse LDL metabolism. In accordance with this notion, a very recent study by Schwartz, VandenBroek, and Cooper (45) conducted in vivo in humans showed that irreversible CE output was from VLDL, intermediate density lipoprotein, and LDL, and little was from HDL. Thus, our study in the mouse may give clues to the understanding of human LDL metabolism. In summary, this in vivo study demonstrated that liver selective uptake from HDL and the catabolism rate of HDL are not influenced by mouse genders, despite significantly lower hepatic SR-BI expression in females. It also showed that SR-BI acts alone in HDL-CE selective uptake in both mouse genders. In contrast, LDL-CE selective uptake is accomplished by SR-BI-dependent and -independent pathways, and both have an impact on LDL composition and physiology.
The authors acknowledge Dr. David Rhainds for helpful scientific discussion and the animal facility unit for useful technical advice. This work was supported by Canadian Institutes for Health Research Grant MOP-53095 to L.B. L.B. was the recipient of a senior scientist scholarship from the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ). G.B. was the recipient of a studentship from the Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche (FCAR) and FRSQ-FCAR Health. Manuscript received April 29, 2004 and in revised form June 16, 2004 and in re-revised form November 17, 2004 and in re-re-revised form January 11, 2005.
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