Furthermore, the role of autophagy in mitochondrial quality control in VSMCs, specifically in atherosclerotic plaque development, has been recently investigated through VSMC-specific deletion of the essential autophagy gene Atg7 in the Atg7F/FTagln-Cre+ mouse crossed with the ApoE−/− mouse model of atherosclerosis (Nahapetyan et al., 2019). This evidence concerns the gene APOE and atherosclerosis.