The effect of dietary rape-seed oil on cholesterol-ester metabolism and cholesterol-ester-hydrolase activity in the rat adrenal.

The effects of stock diet and stock diet supplemented by olive oil and rape seed on rat adrenal cholesterol ester metabolism have been studied. Rats fed rape seed oil failed to gain weight at the same rate as rats fed olive oil. A prominent feature of the rats fed rape seed oil was an accumulation of high concentrations of cholesterol erucate in the adrenal lipid droplets. When these rats were subjected to an ether stress no percentage decrease in the amount of cholesterol erucate was observed. Adrenal cholesterol ester hydrolase activity was higher in rats fed the olive oil and rape seed oil diets than rats fed the stock diet. In rats fed stock or olive oil diets, a ten-minute ether anaesthesia stress resulted in a two-fold increase in activity of adrenal cholesterol ester hydrolase. Cofactor addition of ATP, cyclic AMP and MgCl-2 in vitro resulted in a stimulation of cholesterol ester hydrolase to a similar activity in both quiescent and ether-stressed rats. By contrast rats fed the rape seed oil diet gave no significant stimulation of cholesterol ester hydrolase activity when given an ether stress or when cofactors were added in vitro. Cholesterol erucate was hydrolysed at only 25% to 30% of the rate of cholesterol oleate in vitro in all groups of animals. Oleic acid added in vitro gave an inhibition of cholesterol ester hydrolase activity in rats fed stock diet while erucic acid activated the enzyme. The accumulation of cholesterol erucate in the adrenal when rats are fed rape seed oil could be due to the reduced ability of cholesterol ester hydrolase to hydrolyse this ester.