National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health

We introduce a whole-mount immunohistochemistry and laser scanning confocal microscopy with multiple labelling for analyzing intricate vascular network formation in mouse embryonic limb skin.

Fatigue is a common, undertreated and frequently poorly-understood symptom in many diseases and disorders. New preclinical assays of fatigue may help to improve current understanding and future treatment of fatigue. To that end, the current protocol provides a novel means of measuring fatigue-like behavior in the mouse.

We describe a method using targeted peripheral irradiation to induce fatigue-like behavior in mice. The selected non-lethal irradiation dose leads to a week-long reduction in voluntary wheel-running activity.

Here, we describe a high resolution whole-mount imaging method in the entire adult mouse ear skin, which enables us to visualize branching morphogenesis and patterning of peripheral nerves and blood vessels, as well as immune cell distribution.