About the Authors
- Yumiko Nakagawa-Toyama
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Contributed equally to this work with: Yumiko Nakagawa-Toyama, Songwen Zhang
Current address: Health Care Center, Osaka University/Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan
Affiliation Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Songwen Zhang
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Contributed equally to this work with: Yumiko Nakagawa-Toyama, Songwen Zhang
Current address: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Affiliation Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
- Monty Krieger
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* E-mail: krieger@mit.edu
Affiliation Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Competing Interests
MK and SZ are co-inventors of the HypoE mouse for which there is an issued patent (see below for detailed description of this patent and cover letter that includes the claims of the patent). SZ was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of MK at MIT at the time of the invention and patent application. There are no other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development or modified products etc.) and neither are there any competing financial interests. This patent does not nor or there any other factors of any sort that alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the PLOS ONE guide for authors. Indeed the HypoE mice are made available to the scientific community under a Uniform Biological Material Transfer Agreement (UBMTA), from the Jackson Lab, at which they have been deposited. The other author, YN-T, also has no competing financial interests. Patent information on HypoE mice for PLOS ONE: Title: Inducible heart attack animal model Patent number: 7514592 Inventors: Monty Krieger, Songwen Zhang, Sharon L. Karackattu Original Assignee: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Filing and Issue dates: Apr 5, 2005, Apr 7, 2009 An animal model of coronary heart disease has been developed where myocardial infarct can be induced by altering the animal’s diet. In all embodiments, this animal model is a result of reduced activity of scavenger receptor class BI (SR-BI) and apolipoprotein E (ApoE). In a preferred embodiment, the model is a result of crossbreeding two transgenic mouse lines: a knockout of SR-BI (SR-BI−/−) and an impaired ApoE expressor (hypoE). The impaired ApoE gene results in only 2–5% expression of ApoE and a reduction in cholesterol homeostasis. Resulting animals are predisposed to hypercholesterolemia but can live longer than a year on a normal low fat diet. Serum plasma levels can be significantly elevated by changing the animal’s diet to one containing high levels of fat and cholesterol. Within a month on a high fat, high cholesterol diet, animals develop atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction occurs. Survival depends on the nature of the diet and the conditions of animal husbandry.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: YN-T SZ MK. Performed the experiments: YN-T SZ. Analyzed the data: YN-T SZ MK. Wrote the paper: YN-T SZ MK.