¹¹¹In-DANBIRT In Vivo Molecular Imaging of Inflammatory Cells in Atherosclerosis

Figure 3

LFA-1 targeting in the aortic atherosclerotic plaque. Representative high degree atherosclerotic lesion is shown in HFD-fed mice from OCT subaortic leaflet atherosclerotic sections with a 10x (a) and 63x (b) objective of an Oil Red O stained section. The presence of LFA-1+ cells was correlated with epi fluorescent microscopy using FITC-conjugated rat anti-mouse CD11a antibody (c). A schematic illustration of the atherosclerotic plaque components in relationship to identified LFA-1+ cells (VSMC: vascular smooth muscle cells) is shown in (d). As a counterpart, representative 10x objective (e) and 63x objective (f) epi fluorescent microscopy of OCT frozen subaortic leaflet atherosclerotic sections show small lipid accumulation in the aortic sinus of normal-diet-fed mice. Included are representative images of FITC-conjugated rat anti-mouse CD11a antibody images (g) and a schematic illustration of the atherosclerotic plaque components in the immunohistochemistry image (h). apoE^−/− mice on a HFD exhibit increased percentage of atherosclerotic lesion to vessel wall area in comparison to normal-diet-fed mice (i). Two-tailed Student’s t-test was used for statistical analysis () (n of 4 per group). Immunohistochemistry was only assessed qualitatively but not quantitatively between groups.