Figure 1.

Ganoderma lucidum (GL) protected the carotid artery from disturbed flow-induced atherogenesis. (a) The diagram illustrates the carotid-artery-ligation model. A purple bar indicates the blockage in the ligated left common carotid artery (LCA). Oscillatory blood flow was generated by arterial ligation. Yellow arrows indicate the flow recirculation in the ligated LCA observed in the pulsed wave Doppler image. The unligated right common carotid artery (RCA) served as the sham control. (b) Carotid arteries were excised 14 days after ligation from mice fed with GL (300 mg/kg/day) or water vehicle control (Con) (n = 9 for each group) and processed for H&E staining. Yellow dashed lines delineate the internal or external elastic lamellae. A: adventitia; I: intima; L: lumen; M: media. Bar: 50 μm. (c) The intima and media areas of each arterial tissue section were quantified using the Nikon NIS-Elements D program. Data are means ± SEM from 6 to 8 serial sections from each artery. Statistical significance was calculated using two-way ANOVA and post hoc Tukey's tests, ^∗∗∗p < 0.001.