This article is available online at http://www.jlr.org with centrifugation for 38 h to isolate HDL using a 40.3 or Ti70 rotor at у 40,000 rpm ( 4, 5 ). It was also John Gofman who proposed that elevated levels of lipoproteins cause atherosclerosis, the deposition of lipid in arteries and blood vessels that eventually leads to the premature deaths of so many people in the developed world ( 6 ). It was noticed that HDL could reverse this trend ( 7-9 ), which spurred an intense research focus on the mechanism of HDL as an atheroprotective particle ( 10-15 ), as well as identifying its other functions (16)(17)(18)(19)(20).Few reports have attempted to characterize the stability of lipoproteins in a centrifugal fi eld. Kunitake and Kane ( 21 ) studied human lipoproteins and found that apoAI was lost during each spin until one-third of the apoAI was lost with fi ve spins. Additionally, Ståhlman et al. ( 22 ) demonstrated that using reduced ionic strength solutions allowed for greater recovery of exchangeable apolipoproteins. Increased ionic strength solutions were found to improve the retention of apoAI on the HDL ( 21 ), whereas this decreased the retention of the exchangeable apolipoproteins ( 22 ). Thus, for different apolipoproteins, their mechanism of dissociation from HDL differs. The assembly of HDL is hinted at by less disruptive characterization methods, such as nondenaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. Li et al. ( 23 ) discovered that native gel electrophoresis produced a series of 14 distinct HDL peaks, which they labeled in the order in which they appeared, although most individuals only have about six. LeBoeuf et al. ( 24 ), characterized mouse lipoproteins from a variety of inbred mouse strains and found that mouse lipoproteins were roughly similar in size, although there were differences in the electrophoretic position of the major peak. Thus, depending upon the method of isolation, the pattern of lipoproteins recovered differs.As there are many contemporary publications that utilize high ultracentrifuge rotor speeds, from 65,000 to 120,000 rpm, in order to reduce the time frame needed to isolate lipoproteins ( 25-31 ), and many characterizations of HDL utilize material which was purifi ed via ultracentrifugation Abstract HDL is typically isolated ultracentrifugally at 40,000 rpm or greater, however, such high centrifugal forces are responsible for altering the recovered HDL particle. We demonstrate that this damage to HDL begins at approximately 30,000 rpm and the magnitude of loss increases in a rotor speed-dependent manner. The HDL is affected by elevated ultracentrifugal fi elds resulting in a lower particle density due to the shedding of associated proteins. To circumvent the alteration of the recovered HDL, we utilize a KBr-containing density gradient and a lowered rotor speed of 15,000 rpm to separate the lipoproteins using a single 96 h centrifugation step. This recovers the HDL at two density ranges; the bulk of the material has a density of about 1.115 g/ml, while lessor amounts of material ...