To study the role of the murine equivalent of the CAD risk locus and ANRIL in atherosclerosis, we assessed the development of atherosclerotic plaques in hypercholesterolemic Ldlr−/−ApoB100/100 mice having a systemic deletion orthologous to the human CAD risk interval in Chr9p21.3. Here, CDKN2B-AS1 is linked to atherosclerosis.