Figure 5.

Lesion assessment: Black and white images of the “en face” prepared aortic arch in female (A) and male (B) chimeric mice (left). Surface plot pictures of each respective image (right). Optical density of plaques increases in the order red<pink<blue<green. C: Lesion area of females was equally reduced in chimeric mice expressing iNOS selectively in parenchymal (n = 11) or bone marrow derived cells (n = 9 vs. apoE^−/− in apoE^−/−, n = 16). Deletion of iNOS in both compartments resulted in maximum lesion area reduction in females (n = 6). In contrast, only bone marrow derived iNOS is proatherogenic in male chimeras (apoE^−/−/iNOS^−/− in apoE^−/−, n = 8 vs. apoE^−/− in apoE^−/−, n = 10). Parenchymal iNOS did not influence lesion development in males (apoE^−/− in apoE^−/−/iNOS^−/−, n = 6 vs. apoE^−/− in apoE^−/−, n = 10, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01). All values are expressed as mean ± SE.