Comments to reviewers

human monocyte-derived macrophages from healthy subjects (Page 2, Line 13) Methods; atherosclerotic subjects or healthy control subjects in the macrophage INTERGENE study or healthy volunteers. (Page 7, Line 8) Methods; from healthy volunteers or from subjects in the macrophage INTERGENE study (Page 8, Line 4) Methods; from healthy volunteers (Page 8, line 6) Methods; from healthy volunteers (Page 9, line 6) Results; Human macrophages from 13 healthy volunteers were exposed to hypoxia for 24 h (Page 10, Line 7). Results; Human macrophages from 4 healthy volunteers were treated with mmLDL (50 μg protein/ml) for 24 h (Page 10, Line 13) Figure legend (Fig1); different healthy voluntary donors Figure legends. 2. The size of the products for SR-BI and SR-BII should be given in the Method section (p8). Answer: The sentence “The amplification is predicted to generate a 476 bp fragment for the SR-BI transcript and a 347 bp fragment for the SR-BII transcript” has been added in the Method section (Page 10, Line 13). 3. There is no Figure 1A (referred to in para 1). Answer: This is a mistake. The correct reference should be figure 3A and the text has been revised accordingly (Page 9, Line 5). 4. As Figure 1 contains only two values, it could be deleted and the figures given in the text. Answer: Figure 1 has been removed from the manuscript and all the following figures renamed accordingly. The data presented in figure 1 have been included in the text as the sentence “The expression of macrophage SR-BI was decreased from 1.26±0.17 arbitrary units to 0.73±0.10 arbitrary units (mean±SEM; p<0.005) after hypoxia exposure as determined by real-time RT-PCR analysis” (Page 10, Line 8) 5. Legend to Figure 2, line 1, the word 'donors' seems to be missing Answer: This has been corrected (New figure legend 1, Page 23, Line 3)