Table 1.

Details of animal experiments investigating the effects of rapamycin (RAPA) in atherosclerosis (AS).

	Author and year	Animal model	Diet	Duration	Concentration	Administration	Lipid level
Decrease in AS lesion	Elloso et al., 2003	ApoE KO C57	HF	12 weeks	1, 2, 4, and 8 mg/kg	Oral	Increase in LDLc and HDLc
	Gadioli et al., 2009	ApoE KO C57	NC	12 weeks	5 mg/kg	Oral	Increase in TC
	Castro et al., 2004	ApoE KO C57	HF	6 weeks	1 and 4 mg/kg	Oral	NS
	Zhao et al., 2009	LDLR-deficient C57	HF	8 or 16 weeks	0.1, 0.3, and 1 mg/kg	Oral	NS
	Liu et al., 2016	ApoE KO C57	HF	8 weeks	Not noted	Intra-peritoneal	Not noted
	Basso et al., 2003	ApoE KO C57	HF	12 weeks	4 mg/kg	Oral	Not noted
Enhance AS stability	Chen et al., 2009	Rabbit	HC	20 weeks	0.5 mg/kg	Oral	NS
	Ma et al., 2017	ApoE KO C57	HF	8 weeks	0.5 mg/kg	Oral	Decrease in lipid levels
Decrease in AS lesion and enhance AS stability	Luo Z. et al., 2017	ApoE KO C57	HF and HC	16 weeks	50 and 100 mg/kg	Oral	Not noted
	Dou et al., 2016	ApoE KO C57	HF	12 weeks	1 and 3 mg/Kg	Subcutaneously	Increase in LDLc
Decrease eNOS expression	Cheng et al., 2008	ApoE KO C57	HC	3–4 weeks	3 μg/kg, 3 mg/kg	Oral	Not noted

HF, high fat diet; NC, normal chow diet; HC, high cholesterol diet; LDLc, LDL-cholesterol; HDLc, HDL-cholesterol; TC, total cholesterol; NS, non-significant; AS, atherosclerosis.