APOE and coronary atherosclerosis: In addition, we could not exclude the possibility that the contribution of VSMCs to senescence is underestimated or overestimated in neointimal formation, as macrophages are observed to express SMC markers in human coronary atherosclerosis (45), while many SMC-derived cells within advanced lesions of ApoE−/− mice lack detectable expression of conventional SMC markers such as ACTA2 (46).