Characterization of a novel model for atherosclerosis imaging: the apolipoprotein E-deficient rat.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThe experimental protocol conformed to the ARRIVE guidelines and was approved by the Central Committee on Animal Experiments of The Netherlands (license number AVD105002016707) and the animal welfare body of the University Medical Center Groningen (protocol 16707-01-001) according to directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsThe authors declare no conflict of interest. Competing interests The authors declare no conflict of interest."

"Funding D. Nakládal was financially supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme based on a grant agreement under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie funding scheme No. 945478; by the Slovak Academic and Scientific Programme No. 3333/03/02; and by the Slovak Research and Development Agency No. PP-MSCA-2022-0001. M. Westerterp is supported by a Rosalind Franklin Fellowship from the University Medical Center Groningen with an EU Co-Fund attached, VIDI Grant 91715350 from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO), and an Aspasia grant from NWO."