Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 16 pp 6469—6489

Figure 6. Verification in the clinical samples and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA). (A) Human carotid artery segments were collected from below (normal control) and at (plaque-containing) the carotid bifurcation. (B) CCL18, CCL4, MMP9 and SPP1 expression in stable plaques (n=15 pair) and ruptured plaques (n=15 pair) were evaluated by qPCR and normalized against the corresponding glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) expression. An asterisk represents p<0.05, and two asterisks are shown as p<0.01 when compared with the normal control group. (C) Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) plots showing lipid metabolism and inflammatory immune-related gene sets progressively affected advanced-stage AS.