Figure 1.

(a) Scheme of in vitro experimental setting and graph bars represent the mean ± SEM of flow cytometry analysis of VSMCs phenotypic switch (b) α-SMA⁺, (c) SM22α⁺ expressed as mean fluorescence intensity and (d) α-SMA⁺SM22α⁺, (e) MAC2⁺, (f) MAC2⁺F4/80⁺, and (g) CD68⁺ cells, expressed as percentage of indicated VSMC cells upon oxLDL treatment or co-culture with monocytes, with n = 6/group and * p  <  0.05, ** p  <  0.01, *** p  <  0.001, and **** p  <  0.0001, one-way ANOVA. Representative flow cytometry zebra plots of (h) α-SMA⁺SM22α⁺ and (i) MAC2⁺F4/80⁺ expression quantification.