Histology dataset demonstrating that restored normal blood flow within atherosclerotic arteries promotes plaque stabilization comparable to treatment with atorvastatin

Apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE-/-) mice were initially instrumented with a blood flow-modifying cuff to induce plaque development and then five weeks later the cuff was removed to allow restoration of normal blood flow. Plaques in decuffed mice exhibited compositional changes that indicated stabilization, including decreased lipids, decreased macrophages, and increased collagen. The therapeutic benefit of decuffing was comparable to atorvastatin (with the cuff maintained) and the combination had an additive effect. This dataset includes the raw microscopy images of histological sections for 55 mice stained for lipids (oil red O), macrophages (CD68), and collagen (picrosirius red). The images were acquired with either a Zeiss Axio Observer 5 microscope at 10X magnification using brightfield and polarized light, respectively (oil red O and picrosirius red), or a Ziess LSM 800 confocal microscope using a 20x objective (CD68). Stain quantification from a custom MATLAB program are also provided in the form of a MAT file for every image (there is also a summary MAT file for each mouse/stain provided in each folder as well).