The effect of oxidizing cholesterol on gastrointestinal absorption, plasma clearance, tissue distribution, and processing by endothelial cells

Abstract

Little is known about the absorption or metabolism of oxysterols. Toward better appreciating the metabolic consequences of oxidizing cholesterol, we compared labeled cholesterol with the labeled oxysterols 7α- hydroxycholesterol, 7β-hydroxycholesterol, and 7-ketocholesterol prepared from [4-14C]cholesterol, [26,26,26,27,27,27-2H6] cholesterol, and [23,24,25,26,27-13C5]cholesterol. Gastrointestinal absorption of oxysterols in rats was 91.5±0.3% compared with 75±1.1% for cholesterol, determined by fecal collection (P