title: Magnetic resonance angiography of collateral vessels in a murine femoral artery ligation model.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Cardiology, Max-Planck-Institute for Physiological and Clinical Research, Benekestrasse 2, 61231 Bad Nauheim, Germany. s.wagner@kerckhoff.mpg.de
authors.forename: Shawn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wagner
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Helisch
authors.forename: Tibor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ziegelhoeffer
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bachmann
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schaper
mesh_terms: 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