APOE and atherosclerosis: Accumulating animal study reports also demonstrate that treatment with exogenous recombinant murine IL-12 significantly aggravates the progression of atherosclerosis, and increases aortic atherosclerotic plaque areas in both ApoE-knockout mice and in low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor-deficient mice, while cancelation the biological effects of IL-12 can significantly diminish such effects (Lee et al., 1999; Davenport and Tipping, 2003; Hauer et al., 2005).