Back to results
Key Publications March 19, 2008

Biogenesis of HDL by SAA is dependent on ABCA1 in the liver in vivo.

J Lipid Res 2008;49:386-93

Hu W, Abe-Dohmae S, Tsujita M et al.

Description

Hu et al. reported the results of an investigation that sought to determine the role of serum amyloid A (SAA) and ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) in the biogenesis of HDL in the presence of acute inflammation. Injection of lipopolysaccharide created an acute inflammatory milieu, which increased SAA secretion by the liver. SAA was also found to be solely transported by HDL particles. However, in ABCA1–knockout mice, no HDL was found in the plasma and only a very small quantity of SAA was carried by either LDL or VLDL particles. This study underlines the importance of HDL particles in SAA production and catabolism. This paper was accompanied by an editorial by Godfrey S. Getz underlining the importance by Hu et al.’s paper and discussed some questions it raised. Getz emphasized that the quality of HDL particles was also important in mediating the atheroprotective functions of HDL particles, independent of plasma HDL cholesterol concentrations, as the protein components of HDL particles (SAA, paraoxonase, etc.) are crucial. He also suggested that determining SAA sequence, as has been done for apolipoprotein A1, could help clarify its relationship with ABCA1.
Back to results