Atherosclerosis Progression in Mouse Models

All animal protocols used in this study were approved by the Ethics Committee of Ningxia Medical University (No. 2020–527). Thirty male Jackson (C57BL/6J) mice aged 8 weeks and weighing 18–22 g were purchased from Ningxia Medical Laboratory Animal Center. Thirty male ApoE^−/− mice (8-week-old) were obtained from Vital River Laboratory Animal Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing, China. All the mice were maintained under standard, specific, and pathogen-free conditions in individual cages in a temperature-controlled room (ambient temperature 22 ± 1°C, air humidity 40–70%) with a 12 h light/dark cycle in Ningxia Medical Laboratory Animal Center. A high-fat diet (HFD) with 0.5% cholesterol (No. TP28520) was purchased from TROPHIC Animal Feed High-tech Co., Ltd., Nantong, China. The exact product description of HFD and normal diet were supported in S1 Table. Sodium butyrate (NaB, purity>98, No. V900464) was obtained from Sigma (St Louis, MO, USA).