Faculty of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Kita-12 Nishi-5, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan.
Department of Animal Science Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, 3-18-8, Ueda, Morioka 020-8550, Japan.
Clin Chim Acta. 2019 Jun;493:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.cca.2019.02.020. Epub 2019 Feb 20.
Plasmalogens are ether phospholipids (PL) with an alkenyl group including vinyl ether bound at the sn-1 position and a polyunsaturated fatty acid bound at the sn-2 position, and are susceptible to oxidation. To date, there are no reports on the relationship between plasmalogen in serum lipoproteins and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), caused by multiple factors including oxidative stress. Here, we have investigated the distribution of plasmalogens in serum lipoproteins isolated from NASH patients and healthy volunteers.
Serum lipoproteins were separated by gel-filtration chromatography, and analyzed for ethanolamine and choline plasmalogens using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry.
Both plasmalogen levels were higher in HDL than in VLDL or LDL. The plasmalogens/PL ratio was significantly lower in NASH than controls, for all lipoprotein fractions. Ethanolamine plasmalogens containing 20:4 and 22:6 at the sn-2 position and choline plasmalogens containing 16:0 at the sn-1 position were predominant in each group. In oxidation test using LDL from healthy serum, both types of plasmalogens were decreased during the early stages of oxidation.
Plasmalogens could be a potential biomarker for evaluating the early stages of oxidation in NASH.
血浆醚脂是一类含有烯基的醚磷脂（PL），其 sn-1 位结合有乙烯基醚，sn-2 位结合有多不饱和脂肪酸，易发生氧化。迄今为止，尚无关于血清脂蛋白中醚脂与由多种因素（包括氧化应激）引起的非酒精性脂肪性肝炎（NASH）之间关系的报道。在这里，我们研究了从 NASH 患者和健康志愿者中分离出的血清脂蛋白中醚脂的分布。
通过凝胶过滤色谱法分离血清脂蛋白，并使用液相色谱-质谱法分析乙醇胺和胆碱醚脂。
高密度脂蛋白（HDL）中的醚脂水平均高于极低密度脂蛋白（VLDL）或低密度脂蛋白（LDL）。所有脂蛋白中，NASH 组的醚脂/PL 比值明显低于对照组。sn-2 位含有 20:4 和 22:6 的乙醇胺醚脂和 sn-1 位含有 16:0 的胆碱醚脂在各组中均占优势。在使用健康血清中的 LDL 进行的氧化试验中，两种类型的醚脂在氧化的早期阶段均减少。
醚脂可能是评估 NASH 中氧化早期阶段的潜在生物标志物。
