Coronary atherosclerotic plaque composition and classification in hypercholesterolemic pigs.

ABSTRACT:

Background and aims

Rapacz pigs with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH pigs) fed with high-fat diet (HFD) develop early atherosclerotic lesions and complex atheromas in coronaries mimicking human coronary atherosclerotic disease (CAD). FH pigs have proven to be an excellent model for basic and pre-clinical atherosclerosis-focused research. However, unlike human atherosclerosis there has been no established classification system for porcine atherosclerosis.

Methods

We isolated 104 plaque-containing coronary fragments from atherosclerotic FH pigs. A set of indices (features) of vessel and plaque morphology were quantified for each plaque, including intima-media ratio, vessel cross-sectional area, necrotic core area and fibrous cap thickness. The unsupervised K-means clustering

SUBMITTER: Li M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12860193 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature