Figure 4.

COL15A1 expression increases with atherosclerosis. (A) Col15a1 mRNA levels were measured by RT-PCR in thoracic aorta or liver taken from wild type (C57/BL6) chow-fed mice (n = 5) or Apoe null mice (n = 5) after 13 weeks of a high fat Western diet feeding. Expression of Col15a1 in the thoracic aorta but not liver is significantly increased with accelerated atherosclerosis (high fat diet feeding in an Apoe null background). (B) Microarray gene expression data for COL15A1 from aorta tissue with disease (Cases, n = 26) or without disease (Controls, n = 62). Disease was quantitated using Sudan IV staining for lipids and by counting raised lesions. Controls showed neither lipid staining nor raised lesions. *P, unpaired t-test, two-tailed. ^‡P, mixed model (see methods). ¹microarray data normalization provided in methods.