Increased cholesterol esterase level by cholesterol loading of rat pancreatoma cells

This study used the rat pancreatoma AR42J cells as a model to determine the effects of cholesterol on cholesterol esterase biosynthesis. Incubation of AR42J cells with low-density lipoproteins (LDL) or with the cholesterol-induced beta-very-low-density lipoproteins did not result in changes in cellular cholesterol levels. These cholesterol-rich lipoproteins also had no effect on cholesterol esterase biosynthesis by the AR42J cells. Cellular cholesterol level was found to increase by approx. 2-fold after incubating the AR42J cells with cationized-LDL. The increase in cellular cholesterol level resulted in a higher level of cholesterol esterase secreted into the culture medium. The increased cellular cholesterol also resulted in higher amounts of cholesterol esterase detected in the AR42J cell lysate. The increase in cholesterol esterase level corresponded to a cholesterol-induced increase in steady-state level of cholesterol esterase mRNA. The results of this study, and our previous observation of post-transcriptional activation of cholesterol esterase induced by intestinal hormones (Huang, Y. and Hui, D.Y. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266, 6720-6725), suggested that cholesterol esterase biosynthesis may be regulated by transcriptional and translational mechanisms in response to hormonal and nutrient stimulation of the pancreatic acinar cells. Additionally, the regulation of cholesterol esterase biosynthesis by cholesterol loading of the pancreatic cells suggested a possible role of this enzyme in cholesterol metabolism.