Differential precipitation of isolated human plasma lipoproteins with heparin and manganese chloride.

We studied the precipitation of isolated lipoproteins with heparin and MnCl2. Lipoproteins were isolated from human plasma by preparative ultracentrifugation and their free cholesterol was labeled. Each lipoprotein fraction was then precipitated at various pHs, with or without bovine serum albumin (60 g/L) present. Under no set of conditions was one class of lipoproteins completely separated from the other two. Specifically, under standard conditions for precipitation of serum lipoproteins (pH 7.4 and protein 60 g/L), 12% of the very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and 8% of the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) remained in the supernatant liquid, and 30% of the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) was precipitated. These results indicate that, under these conditions, so-called HDL cholesterol may be a mixture of VLDL, LDL, and HDL, although the sum of the amount of these three fractions remaining in the supernate is fortuitously very close to the value for HDL cholesterol isolated by ultracentrifugation.