AIBP protects against metabolic abnormalities and atherosclerosis

Apolipoprotein A-I binding protein (AIBP) has been shown to augment cholesterol efflux from endothelial cells and macrophages. In zebrafish and mice, AIBP-mediated regulation of cholesterol levels in the plasma membrane of endothelial cells controls angiogenesis. The goal of this work was to evaluate metabolic changes and atherosclerosis in AIBP loss-of-function and gain-of-function animal studies. Here, we show that Apoa1bp mice fed a high-cholesterol, high-fat diet had exacerbated weight gain, liver steatosis, glucose intolerance, hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and larger atherosclerotic lesions compared with Ldlr mice. Feeding Apoa1bp mice a high-cholesterol, normal-fat diet did not result in significant differences in lipid levels or size of atherosclerotic lesions from Ldlr mice. Conversely, adeno-associated virus-mediated overexpression of AIBP reduced hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis in high-cholesterol, high-fat diet-fed Ldlr mice. Injections of recombinant AIBP reduced aortic inflammation in Ldlr mice fed a short high-cholesterol, high-fat diet. Conditional overexpression of AIBP in zebrafish also reduced diet-induced vascular lipid accumulation. In experiments with isolated macrophages, AIBP facilitated cholesterol efflux to HDL, reduced lipid rafts content, and inhibited inflammatory responses to lipopolysaccharide.jlr Our data demonstrate that AIBP confers protection against diet-induced metabolic abnormalities and atherosclerosis.