Atherosclerotic Model Development using HVSMCs

Human vascular smooth muscle cells (HVSMCs) were obtained from the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC, USA). The HVSMCs were maintained in Dulbecco’s modified Eagle medium (DMEM) (Gibco, Rockville, MD, USA) containing 10% foetal bovine serum (FBS) (Gibco) at 37°C in humid air under 5% CO^{2 (link)} conditions. According to previous reports, HVSMCs were treated with ox-LDL (100 μg/mL) for 24 h to establish an atherosclerotic model.^{27 (link)} Cell morphology was observed under an optical microscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan). The criterion for cellular atherosclerosis models was the formation of foam cell.^{28 (link)} Lipid vacuoles were observed under a light microscope.