Geniposide Therapy in Atherosclerosis

The animal experiments performed in this study were approved by the Animal Experiment Ethical Committee of Guangzhou University of TCM (No. 20200330075). The male ApoE^−/− and C57BL/6 mice purchased from Guangdong Yaokang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (Guangdong, China) were housed in a pathogen-free room at a temperature of 25 ± 1 °C in the Experimental Animal Centre of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of TCM. After one week of adaptive feeding, the ApoE^−/− mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD, HFD formula: 21% fat, 0.15% cholesterol, 15.5% protein, and 62% common feed) for 12 weeks to construct AS models. Thirty ApoE^−/− mice were randomly divided into three groups (10 per group). Model group (Mod), high-dose geniposide group (100 mg/kg, H-Gen), and low-dose geniposide group (50 mg/kg, L-Gen) [18 (link)]. Ten C57BL/6 mice were fed a normal diet as the control group (Con). Next, the mice received drug intervention by gavage according to the group every day from the 13th week. The same volume of 0.9% saline was administered to mice in the model and control groups to eliminate interference from human factors. After 10 weeks of treatment, mice were anaesthetised with 1% pentobarbital by intraperitoneal injection at a dose of 50 mg/kg and then sacrificed. Blood and tissue samples were collected for pathological analysis using commercial kits and western blotting.