Microsurgical Models
Indwelling Catheters (pending PPC protocol approval). In some cases drug administration is facilitated by having an indwelling venous or arterial catheter. PPC staff will place a heparinized catheter in your animal model for these purposes.
Custom microsugical services. The PPC staff will work with users to develop any new microsurgical procedure that would have enough repeating volume to warrant development as a core service. If you have interest in developing a new microsurgical model, the PPC staff will work with you to develop the protocol and ensure regulatory compliance. We will then work to develop and validate the protocol, and make it available to PPC users. Please contact Dr. Michele if you are interested.
A number of microsurgical approaches can be utilized to create animal models of human disease or to provide stressful conditions that might reveal a phenotype in an animal model that is not easily detected under normal conditions.Users can rely on our staff for performing these technically demanding procedures, providing a highly reproducible experimental model or treatment delivery approach which after recovery can be used for subsequent phenotypic analysis.
Microsurgical Models
Pressure Overload. A band is placed on either the abdominal aorta (AAB) or the transverse aorta (TAC) to constrict the vessel and increase blood pressure upstream of the constriction. The typical applications are study of the mechanisms of myocardial hypertrophy and remodeling, or to increase hemodynamic stress on the heart by increasing afterload. Chronic pressure overload can also lead to non-ischemic heart failure.
Myocardial Infarction. The left anterior descending artery (LAD) is ligated to produce a local region of permanent ischemia in the heart. The typical applications are to study the effects of treatments or genetic manipulations are infarct sizes (primarily effects on border zone survival), place ischemic stress on the heart, or to create models of ischemic heart failure.
Alzet Osmotic Pump Implantation. Osmotic pumps can be used to chronically administer drugs to mice and rats over several weeks. The type of pump selected is matched to the overall study design in terms of duration, concentration, and the type of phenotyping procedures required.
