B6 mrl faslpr j

Elektra mice were previously generated as described in Berger et al. [27 (link)] Animals were maintained in a specific pathogen-free environment. The p53ER^TAMmice were generously donated by Professor Gerard Evan. C57BL/6J (wild-type), B6.Cg-Tg(BCL2)25Wehi/J, B6.MRL-Faslpr/J, B6.129S7-Rag1^tm1Mom/J (Rag1^−/−) and C57BL/6.SJL (PtprcaPep3b; Ly5.1) (CD45.1) mice were from The Jackson Laboratory.

All animal experiments followed the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were performed in accordance with guidelines of the Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University. ApoE^−/− mice (B6.129P2-Apoe^tm1Unc/J) and Fas^−/− mice (B6.MRL-Fas^lpr/J) were purchased from Jackson Laboratory. The genetic background-matched wild-type C57BL/6 J (B6) mice were got from the Model Animal Research Center of Nanjing University. The mice were housed in a pathogen-free environment with a 12 h day/night cycle. To generate mouse model with combination of atherosclerosis and SLE, the ApoE^−/− mice were cross-bred with Fas^−/− mice, and the resulting heterozygous mice were backcrossed to ApoE^−/− mice. Then the resulting ApoE^−/− Fas^± mice were intercrossed to produce ApoE^−/− Fas^−/− (AF) mice. Genotyping of wild-type and mutant alleles of apoE and lpr were confirmed by PCR (Additional file 1: Fig. S1). Only female mice were used in the present study. At 20 weeks of age, ApoE^−/− Fas^−/− mice were fed a high-fat-containing diet (D12109C, Purchased from Changzhou SYSE Bio-Tec.Co.Ltd. China) for 12 weeks. In cases when anesthesia was required, the mice were anaesthetized by intraperitoneal injection with an overdose of pentobarbital sodium (200 mg/kg).