Mechanism of triglyceride lowering in mice expressing human apolipoprotein A5

Overexpression of human APOA5 in mice results in dramatically decreased plasma triglyceride levels. In this study we explored the mechanism underlying this hypotriglyceridemic effect. Initially we found that triglyceride turnover was faster in hAPOA5 transgenic mice compared to controls, and this strongly correlated with increased LPL activity in postheparin plasma. Furthermore, we show that in vitro recombinant apoAV interacts physically with lipoprotein lipase and significantly increased its activity. We show that both apoB and apoCIII are decreased in hAPOA5 transgenic mice indicating a decrease in VLDL number. To further investigate the mechanism of hAPOA5 in a hyperlipidemic background, we inter-crossed hAPOA5 and hAPOC3 transgenic mice. We found a marked decrease in VLDL triglyceride and cholesterol, as well as apolipoprotein B and CIII levels. These data indicated that apoAV induces a decrease in VLDL size by activating lipolysis and an increase of VLDL clearance. In a postprandial state, the normal triglyceride response found in wild-type mice was significantly reduced in hAPOA5 transgenics. In addition, we demonstrated that in response to this fat load in hAPOA5×hAPOC3 mice, apoAV, but not apoCIII, was redistributed from primarily HDL to VLDL. This shift of apoAV in VLDL appears to limit the increase of triglyceride by activating the lipoprotein lipase.