APOE and atherosclerosis: To test these hypotheses, apoE−/− mice, genetically prone to develop atherosclerosis [20], and C57BL/6 mice, the wild type controls, were fed a standard chow diet, a high fat-high cholesterol (1.25%) diet containing cholate (HC), known as a highly atherogenic diet [21], and a high fat (HF) diet with moderate cholesterol (0.2%), associated with obesity rather than with atherosclerosis [22].