Fig. 4.

Cysteamine reduced atherosclerosis in LDL receptor-deficient mice.

(A) Representative digital images to show atherosclerotic lesions in the aortic arch of control mice and mice treated with the lower dose of cysteamine (2.2 mM in drinking water). Scale bar: 2 mm. Data points to show lesion areas in individual mice in each group in aortic root (B), aortic arch (C) and the remaining thoracic plus abdominal aorta (D) of mice given the low (2.2 mM) and high doses (8.8 mM) of cysteamine. There were 19–22 mice in each group and the horizontal line shows the group mean ± SEM. The combined effect of both doses of cysteamine was significant in the aortic root (p = 0.010; t-test) and arch (p = 0.00001; t-test) and was significant for the lower dose alone (p < 0.001 ANOVA; p = 0.0002 control vs. lower dose, Tukey's post hoc test) and the upper dose alone (p = 0.001 control vs. higher dose, Tukey's) for the aortic arch.