Animals
Male ApoE-/- C57BL/6 mice (8-weeks-old) were purchased
from Vital River Inc. (Beijing, China).
All interventions and animal care
methods were conducted according to the Guidelines and Policies for
Animal Surgery offered by the Animal Ethics Committee of the Second
Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University (Harbin, China). The
mice were kept in a temperature-controlled facility (temperature: 24
degrees Celsius to 25 degrees Celsius, humidity: 55%) with a 12 h
light/12 h dark photoperiod, and food and water were freely available.
ApoE-/- mice were randomized into two groups and
treated as follows: control (saline, ip.) and ATO (2.5 mg
kg-1 d-1, ip.). Mice were maintained
on a Western diet for four months, consisting of 78.85% of basic mice
maintain feed, 21% of fat and 0.15% of cholesterol. At the last month,
mice were fed with intraperitoneal administration of the drugs once
every two days for one month, a total of 15 times. All of the animals
were killed at the end of the testing period. Blood was collected from
the retro-orbital vein and serum was separated. Blood urea acid (UA)
and creatine Kinase(CK) levels as well as aspartate aminotransferase
(AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activities were determined on a
Hitachi 917 Roche Analyzer (Meylan, France) using dedicated
reagents. The investigator was blinded to the group allocation and
assessing the outcome during the experiments.