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cholesterol efflux capacity
Indications:
- assessment of cardiovascular risk (investigational) [1]
Clinical significance:
- measures ability of HDL to accept cholesterol from macrophages, a key step in reverse cholesterol transport
- evaluates cholesterol efflux as mediated by ABCA1 (ATP-binding cassette transporter A1)
- provides better estimate of cardiovascular risk than HDL cholesterol or HDL particle size
Procedure:
- measures the efflux of fluorescence-labeled cholesterol from J774 macrophages to apolipoprotein B-depleted plasma
- the fluorescence-labeled reagent, boron dipyrromethene difluoride (BODIPY) cholesterol is more amenable to use in a large number of samples than radiolabeled cholesterol
Specimen:
- plasma collected in EDTA tubes
General
special chemistry test
References
- Husten L, Fairchild DG, Di Francesco L
HDL Function, Not Level, Looks Like the Key
Physician's First Watch, Nov 19, 2014
David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, Editor-in-Chief
Massachusetts Medical Society
http://www.jwatch.org
- Rohatgi A et al
HDL Cholesterol Efflux Capacity and Incident Cardiovascular
Events.
N Engl J Med. Nov 18, 2014
PMID: 25404125
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1409065