PCSK9 and atherosclerosis: Previous work assessing atherosclerotic plaque load in carotid arteries of wild-type animals injected with AAV-PCSK9 in addition to a high-fat diet and a partial ligation of one carotid artery suggests that the AAV-PCSK9 model of atherosclerosis alone does not result in atherosclerotic plaques within the carotid artery.62