Choice of cyclodextrin for cellular cholesterol depletion for vascular endothelial cell lipid raft studies: cell membrane alterations, cytoskeletal reorganization and cytotoxicity.

The use of cyclodextrins as tools to establish the role of cholesterol rafts in cellular functions has become a widely accepted procedure. However, the adverse effects of cyclodextrins as the cholesterol-depleting agents on cellular structure and functions are not reported in detail. Therefore, in the current study, we investigated the membrane-perturbing actions and cytotoxicity of the two widely used cellular cholesterol-depleting cyclodextrins methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (MbetaCD) and hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (HPCD) in our well-established bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cell (BPAEC) in vitro model system.