A heritable hyperlipemic rabbit.

In the course of study on serous cholesterol of rabbit, we found a male mutant with remarkably high cholesterol level (HLR). The characteristics of this mutant could be described as follows: (1) Serous chemical determinations for the mutant's serum revealed extremely high levels of total lipids, and beta-lipoprotein as total cholesterol, being 3011 mg/dl, 10.6 units and 447 mg/dl respectively. High cholesterol level continued these two years during observation, though some fluctuation has been observed. (2) Such hypercholesterolemia was heritable. Determinative gene for hypercholesterolemia seemed to be recessive and not sex-linked, because, while F1 generation did not show so high cholesterolemia, one female rabbit among twelve off-springs born by full-sib mating showed persisting hypercholesterolemia similar to original HLR. (3) HLR may serve as a model of human familial hyperlipemia Type II or III according to the classification by Fredrickson et al.