Moderate Autophagy Inhibits Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Senescence to Stabilize Progressed Atherosclerotic Plaque via the mTORC1/ULK1/ATG13 Signal Pathway

Figure 1

Autophagy activation induced by rapamycin inhibits atherosclerotic plaque progression in ApoE^−/− mice. (a) HE staining of an aortic tissue section from ApoE^−/− mice fed with HFD for 4 weeks or 16 weeks; (b) quantitation analysis of plaque burden in an aortic tissue section ( per group; versus HFD group, ^# versus low RAPA group); (c) Oil red O staining of the total length of the carotid artery from different mice after 16-week HFD feeding; (d) quantitation of the mean Oil red O-stained plaque area ( per group; versus HFD group, ^# versus low RAPA group).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)