title: Graft coronary artery disease in murine cardiac allografts: proposal to meet the need for standardized assessment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Inconsistency exists in assessing the severity of graft coronary artery disease (GCAD) in studies that use mouse models. The central issue associated with this inconsistency is the lack of a standardized approach for assessing mouse GCAD.
  
  
  METHODS
  We propose a new histologic definition of GCAD based on 3 successive stages (endotheliitis, premature lesion, and mature lesion) that mark the progression of this condition. In addition to these qualitative measures of GCAD, we propose including 2 additional morphometric parameters (percentage of luminal narrowing and intima-to-media ratio) and a measure of distribution (percentage of affected vessels) in the routine quantification of GCAD.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We introduce 2 new mouse models of GCAD as examples that satisfy these criteria.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The proposed assessment criteria may simplify data collection and interpretation of results in various models of GCAD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. masashi@omiya.jichi.ac.jp
authors.forename: Masashi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Eugenia V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Fedoseyeva
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Robbins
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D018450:Disease Progression; D006083:Graft Occlusion, Vascular / Q000473:pathology*; D016027:Heart Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous