Figure 1.

Experimental workflow showing the animal design and methodological approaches. (a) Schematic representation of the experimental setup to induce atherosclerotic lesions in the aorta of New Zealand White rabbits: control group (C, n = 7) received standard chow diet for 12 weeks; atherosclerotic group in early stage (Ae, n = 6) which was fed a high fat diet (0.5% cholesterol and 5% corn oil) for the first 8 weeks followed by standard diet for the remaining 4 weeks; a stabilized atherosclerotic group (As, n = 8) which received a high fat diet for 8 weeks, followed by standard food combined with lipid-lowering treatment for the last four weeks; the late atherosclerotic group (Al, n = 8) that received a high fat diet for 12 weeks. (b) Workflow of combined approaches followed to study atherosclerosis in aortic tissue and blood samples. Adequate sample preparation was achieved for high-performance nano-chromatographic tandem mass spectrometric, histological, biochemical, immunological and gene expression analysis.