Coronary atherosclerotic plaque composition and classification in hypercholesterolemic pigs

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Research
• Translational Medicine
• Animal Models

Background:

• Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) pigs on a high-fat diet develop coronary atherosclerosis mimicking human disease.
• FH pigs are valuable pre-clinical models for atherosclerosis research.
• A standardized classification system for porcine coronary atherosclerosis is lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a classification system for coronary atherosclerotic plaques in FH pigs.
• To correlate porcine plaque characteristics with human coronary atherosclerotic lesion types.

Main Methods:

• Quantified morphological features of 104 coronary plaque fragments from FH pigs.
• Employed K-means clustering to categorize plaques based on morphology and cellular composition.
• Assessed plaque neovascularization, collagen, apoptosis, and calcification for classification.

Main Results:

• Identified 4 distinct coronary plaque groups (A-D) in FH pigs using unsupervised clustering.
• Classified group A as pre-atheroma and groups C-D as advanced atheroma.
• Correlated porcine plaque groups A, B, C, and D with human lesion types III, IV, V, and VI, respectively.

Conclusions:

• FH pigs serve as a suitable pre-clinical model for human-like coronary atherosclerosis.
• The established classification system enhances the utility of FH pigs for coronary artery disease (CAD) research.
• This model shows significant potential for studying vulnerable plaque and advancing CAD discovery research.