Figure 5 raw data. The raw values for each shear metric within the instrumented and control arteries of each mouse from Influence of shear stress magnitude and direction on atherosclerotic plaque composition

The precise flow characteristics that promote different atherosclerotic plaque types remain unclear. We previously developed a blood flow-modifying cuff for ApoE^−/− mice that induces the development of advanced plaques with vulnerable and stable features upstream and downstream of the cuff, respectively. Herein, we sought to test the hypothesis that changes in flow magnitude promote formation of the upstream (vulnerable) plaque, whereas altered flow direction is important for development of the downstream (stable) plaque. We instrumented ApoE^−/− mice (<i>n</i> = 7) with a cuff around the left carotid artery and imaged them with micro-CT (39.6 µm resolution) eight to nine weeks after cuff placement. Computational fluid dynamics was then performed to compute six metrics that describe different aspects of atherogenic flow in terms of wall shear stress magnitude and/or direction. In a subset of four imaged animals, we performed histology to confirm the presence of advanced plaques and measure plaque length in each segment. Relative to the control artery, the region upstream of the cuff exhibited changes in shear stress magnitude only (<i>p</i> p

介导不同动脉粥样硬化斑块类型形成的精确血流特征仍未明确。我们此前为载脂蛋白E基因敲除（ApoE−/−）小鼠研发了一款血流调节袖套，该装置可分别在袖套上游和下游区域诱导形成兼具易损性与稳定性特征的晚期动脉粥样硬化斑块。本研究旨在验证如下假说：血流强度变化可促进上游（易损性）斑块的形成，而血流方向改变则对下游（稳定性）斑块的发育具有关键作用。我们对7只ApoE−/−小鼠的左侧颈总动脉置入该袖套，并在袖套植入后8至9周采用显微CT（micro-CT，分辨率39.6 μm）对其进行成像。随后通过计算流体动力学（Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD）分析，我们计算了6项基于壁面切应力（wall shear stress, WSS）强度和/或方向的致动脉粥样硬化血流特征指标。在完成成像的4只小鼠亚组中，我们开展了组织学检测，以确认晚期斑块的存在并测量各动脉节段的斑块长度。相较于对照动脉，袖套上游区域仅出现切应力强度的改变（p值*p* p