APOE and atherosclerosis: Preclinical reports have also demonstrated that treatment with exogenous recombinant murine IL-12 significantly aggravated the progression of atherosclerosis, and it increased aortic atherosclerotic plaque areas in both ApoE-deficient mice and low-density lipoprotein receptor-deficient mice, whereas abrogating IL-12 levels significantly diminished such effects [56,57,58].