LAUSR

BACKGROUND Phosphatidylcholine (PC) are considered to be the major dietary sources for choline, which is associated with the atherosclerosis progress. Thus, phosphatidylglucose (PG) was prepared by enzymatic modification of PC to study the effects on atherosclerosis in apolipoprotein E deficient (ApoE-/- ) mice, and to investigate its dose response relationship. RESULTS The results showed that dietary PG significantly decreased the atherosclerotic lesion area in a dose dependent manner. Further studies found that the intervention of 0.8 g kg-1 diet and 2 g kg-1 diet PG for 4 mon significantly decreased free cholesterol level and thus reduced the total cholesterol level in serum. The results of cholesterol distribution among lipoproteins showed that dietary PG significantly decreased low-density lipoprotein level in ApoE-/- mice. In addition, only administration of high-dose PG significantly reduced the total cholesterol levels in liver tissues by 31.2%. Furthermore, mice treated with high-dose PG had an expanded bile acid pool and increased the ratio of conjugated bile acids to unconjugated bile acids in liver, serum and gallbladder via increasing hepatic gene expression of primary and conjugated bile acid synthesis. Additionally, low-dose and high-dose PG significantly increased total fecal sterols by 20.8% and 11.9%, respectively, by increasing sitosterol and ethylcoprostanol levels. CONCLUSION These results indicate that PG alleviated atherosclerosis in a dose dependent manner via increasing cholesterol alienation to bile acids and cholesterol efflux. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.