Composition of tissue lipids and anaemia of guinea pigs in response to dietary cholesterol

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Abstract
Groups of male and female guinea pigs were given a semi-synthetic diet, with or without 1% of cholesterol, for 50-60 days. The cholesterol-fed animals developed enlarged and fatty livers, very large spleens and hemolytic anemia. Feeding with cholesterol produced not only a large increase in the cholesterol ester fraction of livers, plasma and spleens but also an increase in unesterified cholesterol. The erythrocytes responded to feeding with cholesterol by a 3-fold increase in their cholesterol and phospholipid contents. The phospholipids of the spleens and particularly of the erythrocytes had a high arachidonic acid content which further increased in the cholesterol-fed animals. The cholesterol esters and phospholipids of livers and plasma and the cholesterol esters of spleens had, on the other hand, a characteristically low arachidonic acid content but a high linoleic acid content. The results suggested that, in the guinea pig, the rate of arachidonic acid formation, or the rate of cholesterol esterification, or both, was not sufficient to maintain a normal tissue-lipid composition when cholesterol was added in the diet. Some possibilities for the mechanism of the development of the anemia observed in the cholesterol-fed guinea pigs are discussed.