Medical College of Wisconsin

Practicing of fine needle aspiration biopsies (FNAB) by trainees is relatively challenging, due to the lack of an easily available, appropriate lesion. Preparation of an AV phantom lesion for practicing the FNAB procedure and mastering proficiency is relatively easy.

Fat pad aspiration is a preferred, minimally invasive, and low cost approach as compared to other methods to detect amyloid for diagnosis of systemic amyloidosis. This video article demonstrates a procedural outline for performing fat pad aspiration with appropriate processing of the specimen for the optimal diagnostic outcome.

This article describes an in situ hybridization protocol optimized for colormetric detection of microRNA expression in formalin fixed kidney sections.

The analysis of skeletal muscle tissues to determine structural, functional, and biochemical properties is greatly facilitated by appropriate preparation. This protocol describes appropriate methods to prepare skeletal muscle tissue for a broad range of phenotyping studies.

The article describes the detailed methodology to efficiently differentiate human pluripotent stem cells into cardiomyocytes by selectively modulating the Wnt pathway, followed by flow cytometry analysis of reference markers to assess homogeneity and identity of the population.

This protocol entails detailed procedures for isolation of urine derived cells from muscular dystrophy patients; their efficient and rapid reprogramming through Sendai virus transduction.

This protocol describes techniques for live cell isolation and primary culture of myogenic and fibroblast cell lines from muscle or skin tissue. A technique for the immortalization of these cell lines is also described. Altogether, these protocols provide a reliable tool to generate and preserve patient-derived cells for downstream applications.

The goal of this protocol is to obtain high-quality diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) of the rat spinal cord for noninvasive characterization of tissue microstructure. This protocol describes optimizations of the MRI sequence, radiofrequency coil, and analysis methods to enable DWI images free from artifacts.

Vascular cell functiondepends on activity of intracellular messengers. Described here is an ex vivo two photon imaging method that allows the measurement of intracellular calcium and nitric oxide levels in response to physiological and pharmacological stimuli in individual endothelial and smooth muscle cells of an isolated aorta.

Changes in the intracellular calcium levels in the podocytes are one of the most important means to control the filtration function of glomeruli. Here we explain a high-throughput approach that allows detection of real-time calcium handling and single ion channels activity in the podocytes of the freshly isolated glomeruli.

Ion channels expressed in renal tubular epithelium play a significant role in the pathology of polycystic kidney disease. Here we describe experimental protocols used to perform patch-clamp analysis and intracellular calcium level measurements in cystic epithelium freshly isolated from rodent kidneys.

Enzymatic microelectrode biosensors enable real-time measurements of extracellular cell signaling in biologically-relevant concentrations. The following protocols extend the applications of biosensors to the ex vivo and in vivo detection of ATP and H₂O₂ in the kidney.

This protocol describes how to induce experimental necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in newborn rats and mice.

We describe the isolation of cardiac extracellular matrix from C57Bl/6J control mice, tight-skin mice, and tight-skin mice treated with the IRF5 inhibitory peptide. We also describe the vasodilation studies on the isolated vessels from C57Bl/6J, tight-skin mice and tight-skin mice treated with the IRF5 inhibitory peptide.

This manuscript describes in vitro video microscopy protocols for evaluating vascular function in rat cerebral resistance arteries. The manuscript also describes techniques for evaluating microvessel density with fluorescently labeled lectin and tissue perfusion using Laser Doppler Flowmetry.

We describe a protocol to measure vortex formation time, an index of left ventricular filling efficiency, using standard transesophageal echocardiography techniques in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. We apply this technique to analyze vortex formation time in several groups of patients with differing cardiac pathologies.

We present an approach to purify ribosome-bound mRNA from vascular endothelial cells (ECs) directly in mouse brain, lung and heart tissues via EC-specific genetic tag of enhanced green fluorescence protein (EGFP)in ribosomes in combination with RNA purification.

When randomized controlled trials are not feasible, a comprehensive health care data source like the Military Health System Data Repository provides an attractive alternative for retrospective analyses. Incorporating mortality data from the national death index and balancing differences between groups using propensity weighting helps reduce biases inherent in retrospective designs.

This article demonstrates the use of laser Doppler flowmetry to evaluate the ability of the cerebral circulation to autoregulate its blood flow during reductions in arterial blood pressure.

We describe the reduction of reperfusion injury by 670 nm irradiation in a mouse model of ischemia and reperfusion by tourniquet placement. This 670 nm irradiation reduced the inflammatory response, decreased the number of proinflammatory macrophages, and increased the protective macrophages.

The present protocol describes designing, preparing, and microinjecting a translational-blocking morpholino against a representative cardiac gene; Heart And Neural Crest Derivatives Expressed2 (hand2) into the yolk of newly fertilized zebrafish embryos to knock down gene function. It also shows a transient rescue of these "morphants" by co-injection of mRNA encoding this gene product.

The present protocol describes a long-term continuous measurement of renal blood flow in conscious rats and simultaneously recording blood pressure with implanted catheters (fluid-filled or by telemetry).