Oral Tolerance with Continued Hypercholesterolemia Stabilizes Vulnerable Plaque.

<p>A. Experimental design. B. Representative photomicrographs of plaque area stained with EVG and its quantitative analysis in aortic sinus of 26 week old ApoB^tm25gyLDLr^tm1Her mice (n = 10 per group). Scale bar represents 200 µm C. Percentage of acellular necrotic core area in total plaque area. *P = 0.012 D. Representative photomicrographs showing double immunofluorescence staining of aortic sinus sections with CD4 (green) and Foxp3 (red). Scale bar represents 50 µm. Enlarged region to show double immune staining. Scale bar represents 6.25 µm. Right panel: Number of CD4-positive cells/mm² and CD4+ Foxp3+ cells/mm² (n = 9per group). ***P<0.001. E. Percentage of CD25⁺Foxp3⁺ cells (*P<0.009) and CTLA-4 (NS) within the CD4 population in spleen (n = 6 per group). F. Expression of mRNA of Foxp3 (***P = 0.003), CTLA-4 (P = NS), and TGF-β (**P = 0.005) in the ascending aorta quantified by RT-PCR and normalized to GAPDH. Fold-changes in their expression in ApoB+HSP60-tolerized mice relative to controls (n = 4 per group).