Measurements of cholesterol and bile acid synthesis and of cholesterol precursors were performed in two hypercholesterolemic families with two homozygous girls under basal conditions and during treatment with cholestyramine. The concentrations of serum methyl sterols, squalene, cholesterol, and triglycerides, and the responses to cholestyramine were not consistently different in the two families. However, in both families stimulation of cholesterol synthesis by cholestyramine markedly increased the methyl sterol content of serum lipoproteins both in heterozygotes (with a lowering of serum cholesterol) and in homozygotes (with virtually no lowering of serum cholesterol concentration). The bile acid and cholesterol synthesis rates were modestly low in one family and markedly high in the other both with and without cholestyramine treatment, the baseline production rates being significantly correlated with the increments in the synthesis caused by cholestyramine. The two families apparently represent low and high producing types of familial hypercholesterolemia. Cholesterol synthesis in the two homozygous girls was about twice that of their respective heterozygous parents with and without cholestyramine treatment, suggesting that the double dose of the mutant gene doubled cholesterol production. A t the cellular level the homozygous state of famili ial xanthomatotic hypercholesterolemia is characterized by either absent, defective, or poorly functioning cell membrane receptors for low density lipoprotein (LDL). 1 " 3 Consequently, catabolism of LDL is impaired and results in a marked increase in the plasma level of LDL, i.e., in hypercholesterolemia. The production rate of LDL also appears to be enhanced, 4 " 7 but the overall cholesterol metabolism is poorly understood. In heterozygous adults cholesterol and especially bile acid synthesis is frequently subnormal 8 probably due to low hepatic cholesterol synthesis, 9 and the response to choiestyramine is low especially in subjects with a low baseline production.10 Hepatic cholesterol synthesis of homozygous hypercholesterolemic rabbits, Watanabe rabbits, also appears to be subnormal.11 Studies on cholesterol and bile acid synthesis in homozygous patients Received September 27,1983; revision accepted February 27, 1984. (mostly children) have revealed high, normal, and low production rates 6 ' 712 " 21 with no apparent relation to the LDL receptor status.7 No family studies have been performed, however. In the present study fecal steroids were measured in two homozygous hypercholesterolemic Finnish children and their parents before and during cholestyramine treatment to learn to what extent the heterozygous state of the parents is related to cholesterol metabolism in their homozygous children. Cholesterol precursors, squalene and unesterified methyl sterols, were also determined in serum because methyl sterols, and less consistently, squaiene relay changes in cholesterol synthesis in many clinical conditions.
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Methods
Family StudiesThe clinical data about the ...