Figure 3.

Reduced atherosclerotic lesion size in the aortic arch following mTOR attenuation. Overall aortic arch lesion area (a) in HFD-fed LDLR^−/− female (left panel), male (center panel) and both female and male (right panel) mice were significantly reduced following either 20 or 30 weeks of rapamycin treatment (*, two-way ANOVA F(1,34) = 11.69, p = 0.002) n = 6–8/group; (b) Reduced lesion area by rapamycin treatment in the aortic root of female mice after, but not prior to, the onset of lesion formation (left panel, quantitative analyses of anatomical data; right panel, representative images (oil red o (ORO), haemotoxylin and eosin (H&E)). Student’s unpaired t test, *, p = 0.026), n = 12/group (c) No difference in male but significantly reduced left ventricle mass in female LDLR ^−/− mice treated with rapamycin (*, two-way ANOVA F(1,28) = 10.30, p = 0.029), n = 8/group. Data are means ± SEM.