Morphometric consequences of vascular COX-2 deletion on lesion development. Lesion morphology in aortic roots from female mice fed HFD for 6 months were analyzed. Quantification of immunohistochemical staining of collagen (A), laminin (B), α-SMA (C) and VCAM-1 (D) from each genotype are shown in parallel with their representative aortic root sections. One-way ANOVA (Kruskal-Wallis test) revealed a significant effect of genotype (P<0.05) on lesion morphology. Dunnett’s multiple comparison tests were used to test significant differences between WT and COX-2 KOs. Data are means ± SEMs. n=4-5 per genotype. L- lumen, m- media, nc- necrotic core, fc- foam cell.