Silencing anticoagulant protein c causes spontaneous atherothrombosis in ApoE knockout mice

Objectives: Studies on atherothrombosis, a major cause of cardiovascularevents, are hampered by the lack of animal models spontaneously developingatherothrombosis. Major underlying problems are the stability ofthe atherosclerotic plaques, combined with the strong plasma anticoagulantactivity. We hypothesized that inhibition of the anticoagulant systemby silencing of protein C (Proc) may cause murine atherosclerotic plaquesto become prone to atherothrombosis.Biopharmaceutic