Fig 2: Tongxinluo improved the stability of HCB-induced plaques and alleviated inflammation through non-lipid-dependent pathways in rabbits. CONTROL: normal diet (n = 12); HCB: high cholesterol diet and balloon injury (n = 8); HCB + TXL 4w: HCB and treated with TXL for 4 weeks (n = 7). HCB + TXL 8w: HCB and treated with TXL for 8 weeks (n = 8). HCB + TXL 12w: HCB and treated with TXL for 12 weeks (n = 10) (A) Plaque’s stability test results. Oil red O staining was applied to show lipid in abdominal aorta. Sirius red staining was used to detect collagen fibers. Abdominal aorta sections were stained for macrophages (MOMA-2) or vascular smooth muscle cells (a-SMA). bar = 50 µm (B) Plaque vulnerability index statistics. Data are shown as the mean ± S.E.M. **: p < 0.01. (C,D,E) The changes of Blood lipids (C), Serum inflammatory factors TNF-a (D) andIL-1ß (E) of New Zealand White Rabbit in normal diet (CONTROL, n = 12), high cholesterol diet (HCB, n = 8) and high cholesterol diet with TXL treatment for 12 weeks (HCB + TXL 12w, n = 10), measured by enzymatic determination. Non-parametric test was used for statistical tests. Data were presented as median (minimum to maximum) (F) Histopathological results. Immunohistological staining of the abdominal aortic cross-section showing dense, positive NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1ß/IL-18 in the five different treatment groups. (G,H) Western blotting to quantitate NLRP3/Caspase-1/IL-1ß/IL-18 protein expression (G), and non-parametric test was used for statistical, data were shown as the mean ± S. E. M (H). *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001.

Fig 3: Alterations in pro- and anti-inflammatory markers. Statistics from western blot analyses of (a) NF-?B and real-time PCR analyses of (b) TLR4, (c) IL-12, (d) IL-18, and (g) IL-10 mRNA expression performed with lysates of cardiac tissue from diseased and non-diseased, younger and older men and women. Data are shown as the means ± SEM (n = 3-9/group). All data were normalized to the corresponding control and western blot data expressed in relative units (r.u.). (e and f) Representative images and statistics of IL-18 staining of cardiac tissue from younger and older men and women with DCMI (n = 3-5/group). Magnification 200×. Scale bar = 100 µm. Mann–Whitney Test; *p < 0.05 versus corresponding control.