Fig. 1.

Endothelial ACKR3 deficiency attenuates atherosclerosis in hyperlipidemic mice. A Expression of endothelial ACKR3 in human carotid artery atherosclerotic lesions. B Schematic representation of the 4-week WD experimental setup (created with BioRender.com). C Schematic representation of the studied atherosclerosis prone regions. D Representative images (scale bar: 500 µm) and E quantification of atherosclerotic lesion sizes in the aortic roots of mice fed with 4 weeks of WD (n = 22–32). F Representative images (scale bar: 500 µm) and G quantification of atherosclerotic lesion sizes in the aortic roots of mice fed 12 weeks of WD (n = 12–14). H Representative images (scale bar: 500 µm) and I quantification of atherosclerotic lesion sizes in the aortic arches (n = 12–13). J Representative images (scale bar: 250 µm) and K quantification of macrophage (MAC2 +) content in the aortic roots (n = 12). L Representative images (scale bar: 250 µm) and M quantification of collagen (n = 12–14) and N necrotic core content in the aortic roots (n = 12–13). O Spearman r correlation of plasma CXCL12 levels and aortic root lesion content in mice fed 12 weeks of WD (R = 0.8, p = 0.0039), (n = 12–14). Results represent Mean ± SEM. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01