Graft coronary artery disease in murine cardiac allografts: proposal to meet the need for standardized assessment.
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.
Tanaka
Masashi
M
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University, School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. masashi@omiya.jichi.ac.jp
Fedoseyeva
Eugenia V
EV
Robbins
Robert C
RC
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