Familial hypercholesterolemia of rhesus macaques

Study goal: This project was performed to find out the causative gene of hypercholesterolemia in rhesus macaques. Relevance: We found a rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) with hypercholesterolemia who had Cys82Tyr mutation in low density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR). The monkey had six heterozygous offspring and a homozygous one. Since the normal diet did not contain cholesterol, feeding 0.1% or 0.3 % cholesterol-added diets to these offspring increased plasma LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in only two offspring (Nos.1784 and 1834). In human males the cut off value of cardiovascular risk incidence Total-C/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C are 5.0 and 3.5, respectively. The values of these male macaques were maximum 6.4 and 4.7, respectively in with ten weeks administration. As the control, No.1557, the sister of No.1784 and the mother of No.1834, was used.