Fig. 1

Site-specific disturbed blood flow in the aorta. Flow separation in the pig aortic arch (AA) defines an athero-susceptible site characterized by disturbed blood flow and oxidative stress. a: Flow velocity vectors in the aorta illustrating flow separation with reversal in the inner curvature of the AA during systole. Unidirectional flow recovers in the athero-protected descending thoracic (DT) segment. b: MRI-generated computational fluid dynamics of human systolic aortic blood flow. Low net flow in the AA separated flow region is below system detection. Unidirectional pulsatile laminar flow dominates all other regions. (From Markl et al. 2011) [61], reproduced with permission. c: Computed wall shear stress (WSS) and velocity distributions during systole in rat aorta. (Adapted from Bjorck et al. 2012) [62] with open access permission to reproduce. d: Aortic arch of apoE^−/− mouse fed a high fat high cholesterol diet for 6 weeks, illustrating fatty streak atherosclerosis at the inner curvature of the AA. From Cheng et al. [63] reprinted with permission. e. Pig AA and DT endothelial harvest sites (i and ii) with their respective endothelial cell morphologies (iii and iv). An occasional smooth muscle cell or leukocyte was identified within the harvested endothelium (v). Endothelial nucleic acids were isolated for methylated DNA immunoprecipitation sequencing (MeDIP-seq) and for qRT-PCR (vi)