Analysis of plant sterols and oxysterols in the serum of patients with sitosterolemia under different drug treatments

Abstract

Sitosterolemia is a very rare inherited disease, characterized biochemically by elevated plasma levels of plant sterols and moderatly increase in the level of cholesterol and clinically by premature atherosclerosis due to genetic defects in either one of the two ATP binding cassette transporters known as ABCG5 and ABCG8. Oxyphytosterols and oxycholesterols may have implications in the etiology of atherosclerosis. In this work the effect of Ezetimibe as a first member of a new class called cholesterol absorption inhibitor was investigated on the level of oxysterols in patients with sitosterolemia. Ezetimibe was effective to reduce the level of cholesterol in patients with hypercholesterolemia and plant sterols in patients with sitosterolemia but had no effect on the level of oxysterols.