Isolation and and partial characterization of the lipid phases of human atherosclerotic plaques.

Human atherosclerotic plaques have lipid compositions that fall in the three-phase region of the phase diagram of the major lipids of plaques, cholesterol, cholesterol ester, and phospholipid.We attempted to isolate the three lipid phases from both plaque homogenates and from extracted total plaque lipids using discontinuous sucrose density gradient centrifugation.The gradient was designed to isolate the cholesterol ester-rich phase (d 5 1.000 g/ml), the phospholipid-rich phase (d 5 1.028), the cholesterol monohydrate crystal phase (d < 1.054), and more dense nonlipid plaque