Male Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats weighing 200-220 g were obtained from Experimental Animal Center of Shantou University, Shantou, China. The study was approved by Ethic Committee of Shantou University. Totally 50 rats were used in current study and after 1 week’s accommodation were evenly and randomly divided into 5 groups. Ten rats given normal diet were served as sham group, and the other 40 rats were given a high-fat and high-cholesterol diet as described by previous study with mild modification (cholesterol 4%, cholic acid 0.4%, propylthiouracilum 0.3% and lard 10%) for 6 weeks for hyperlipidemic model production [25 (link)]. Subsequently, the 40 hyperlipidemic rats were randomly and evenly assigned into 4 groups as follow: control group was orally given normal saline, statins group orally given atorvastatin (10 mg/kg body weight/day, reconstituted in normal saline), colchicine group intraperitoneally injected colchicine (0.5 mg/kg body weight/day, dissolved in 0.05% dimethyl sulfoxide, DMSO), and combined group given atorvastatin and colchicine as described above. Total intervention duration was 2 weeks.
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