Atherosclerotic Plaque Stability Is Affected by the Chemokine CXCL10 in Both Mice and Humans
Figure 1
Anti-CXCL10 treatment in atherosclerosis susceptible mice results in a change into a more stable lesion phenotype. A flow-altering device around the common carotid artery induced atherosclerosis in mice. From week 1 to 4 of lesion development, a bioactivity-neutralizing anti-CXCL10 antibody was injected. After 9 weeks, lesions were compared to untreated controls by histology. The pictures show representative histological sections of treated and control mice. All photographs have been made with the same magnification (100x). Scale bars are provided in (e) and represent 100 μm. Data in bar diagrams are the mean values ± SD of at least 8 sections from at least 10 different animals per group. CXCL10 inhibition resulted in a more stable morphology evidenced by unchanged amounts of lesion macrophages (a), increased amounts of collagen (b), decreased macrophage activation (c), increased numbers of SMC (d), and reduced necrotic core size (e). *, **. MHC-II: Major Histocompatibility Complex Class II, SMC: smooth muscle cell.
