Magnetic resonance angiography of collateral vessels in a murine femoral artery ligation model.
The in vivo detection of growing collateral vessels following arterial occlusion is difficult in small animals. We have addressed the feasibility of performing high resolution time-of-flight angiograms to monitor the growth of collateral vessels after femoral artery occlusion in mice. We will also present a low-pass quadrature birdcage coil construction with a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio to produce high resolution. After a 4-month recovery period a C57BL/6 mouse with a surgical occlusion of the right femoral artery was used to assess the image quality and time requirements to produce magnetic resonance angiograms sufficient to assess collateral artery development using a two-dimensional gradient echo sequence. At a resolution of 100 x 100 x 100 microm and a matrix size of 256 x 128 x 256 for a 2.56 cm isometric volume, three scans were performed with one, two and four repetitions resulting in signal-to-noise ratios for the femoral artery proximal to the ligation site of 58, 126 and 194, respectively. Five C57BL/6 mice were additionally measured 4 weeks after occlusion using two repetitions and the visual collateral vessels were assessed for number and location: 2.0 +/- 1.2 in quadriceps muscle, 0.6 +/- 0.5 in adductor (deep adductor vessel), 0.0 +/- 0.0 in adductor (surface adductor vessels). The results showed a significant difference, two-sided t-test, p < 0.05, in number of vessels in all the locations. We have shown that this method can be utilized to elucidate the contribution of collateral vessels to arterial flow.
Wagner
Shawn
S
Department of Experimental Cardiology, Max-Planck-Institute for Physiological and Clinical Research, Benekestrasse 2, 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany. s.wagner@kerckhoff.mpg.de
Helisch
Armin
A
Ziegelhoeffer
Tibor
T
Bachmann
Georg
G
Schaper
Wolfgang
W
D000818:Animals; D001157:Arterial Occlusive Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D001808:Blood Vessels / Q000473:pathology*; D003097:Collateral Circulation; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004867:Equipment Design; D005263:Femoral Artery / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D008026:Ligation; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000473:pathology*; D018919:Neovascularization, Physiologic; D013848:Thigh / Q000098:blood supply / Q000473:pathology; D014159:Transducers