Lipid accumulation in liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys of miniature-pigs after chloroquine treatment.

Chronic chloroquine treatment of type-Göttingen miniature-pigs induced lipid accumulation in the liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. The lipid analyses showed marked quantitative and qualitative differences between the organs. In the liver the lipids affected most were cholesteryl esters and glucosylceramides, which were increased at the most 20 times. Cholesterol and ganglioside concentrations were also increased, though less markedly. The concentration of acidic phospholipids was slightly increased but that of the neutral phospholipids was unaffected. There was a considerable inter-individual variation in the lipid changes. Spleen and lung showed significant increases of all the major lipids. Glucosylceramide was increased more than the other lipids, namely 6-fold in the spleen and 10-fold in the lung. The concentration of acidic phospholipids as well as that of gangliosides was increased by 50% in the spleen and by 100% in the lung. The organ affected least was the kidney, in which only the glycolipids, both acidic and neutral, were significantly increased. Common to all the organs of the chloroquine-treated pigs was the large increase of glucosylceramide, ganglioside CM2 and bis(monoacylglyceryl)phosphate. The ganglioside increase affected all the individual gangliosides and, except for the increased proportion of ganglioside GM2, there were not remarkable changes in the ganglioside pattern in any of the organs.