Cyclodextrins (CDs) have long been used to manipulate cellular cholesterol levels both in vitro and in vivo, but their direct effects at a cellular level are not well characterized. Recently, CDs have garnered much interest because of their ability to clear stored cholesterol from Niemann Pick Type C (NPC) cells and markedly prolong the life of NPC1 disease mice. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that treatment with 2-hydroxypropyl- β-cyclodextrin (HPB-CD) stimulates lysosomal exocytosis in a calcium-enhanced manner. We propose that this exocytosis is the mechanism by which HPB-CD ameliorates the endolysosomal cholesterol storage phenotype in NPC cells. These findings have significant implications for the use of HPB-CD in biochemical assays and data interpretation as well as for their use for the treatment for NPC and other disorders.
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Chen et al. (2010) studied this question.
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