Name: fetal mouse cardiovascular imaging using a high-frequency ultrasound (30/45mhz) system
Uploaded: 2018-05-05T12:30:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound 30/45MHZ System at JoVE.com

We thank the animal physiology core, division of molecular medicine at UCLA for providing&#160;technical support&#160;and open access to the Vevo 2100 ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) system. This study was supported by the NIH/Child Health Research Center (5K12HD034610/K12), the UCLA-Children&#39;s Discovery Institute and Today and Tomorrow Children&#39;s Fund, and David Geffen School of Medicine Research Innovation award to M. Touma.

The University of California, Los Angeles, Animal Care and Use Committee has approved all procedures shown in this protocol. The experiments were conducted as part of an ongoing study under active animal protocols approved by the institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA. Animal handling and care followed the standards of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.
1. Preparing the High Frequency Ultrasound Imaging System
...

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Cardiovascular malformations and diseases are substantially influenced by genetic factors and environmental elements19. We have previously demonstrated a significant impact of maternal caloric restriction, initiated during the second trimester, on feto-placental circulatory flow and fetal cardiac function9.
Prenatal hypoxia is another common stress factor during fetal development that may tremendously affect the feto-placental physiology and&#160...

Congenital malformations of the heart are heterogeneous structural defects that occur during early cardiac development. Current technical advances of operational procedures have led to significant improvements in the survival rates of&#160;infants with CHDs1,2. However, quality of life is often compromised secondary to&#160;prolonged hospitalization and needs for staged surgical repair procedures1,2,3,4,5. Prenatal detection of the underlying molecular mechanisms of CHDs is crucial in order to plan early interventions, to carry out new prevention strategies, and to improve the lifelong outcomes6,7.
Although multiple genetic and environmental factors have been implicated in CHDs pathogenesis, establishing the causality remains an unmet need to improve diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive strategies1,8,9,10,11,12. Furthermore, examining the roles of in utero&#160;stress factors and epigenetic modifiers opens new venues for future investigations11,12. The last decade has indeed witnessed rapid advances in next generation sequencing technology including single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) microarray, whole exome sequencing, and genome-wide methylation studies,&#160;their utilization in studying the genetic causes of complex human diseases, including CHDs1,8,9,10,11&#160;paving the way to identify&#160;novel mutations and genetic variants that have not yet been tested for their pathogenicity in suitable animal models.
Among the different disease model systems, mouse&#160;is the animal model of choice, not only for investigating mechanisms of CHDs during early cardiogenesis13,14,15,16, but also to elucidate their impact on cardiac chamber maturation and function at late gestation in prenatal and perinatal stress factors. Hence, performing in vivo phenotypic characterization of a mutant fetal mouse heart, during both early and late stages of development, is crucial to understand the role of these genetic variations&#160;and environmental factors on&#160;cardiac development, and the potential future impact on chamber specific maturation processes in mice.
Early detection and accurate diagnosis of cardiac defects during development is critical for interventional planning17,18. Being safe, simple, portable and repeatable, fetal sonography has indeed become the standard imaging technique for cardiac evaluation in the clinic. Fetal circulation assessment using Doppler ultrasound has been widely used in clinical practice&#160;not only for the detection of&#160;cardiac defects, but also to detect vascular abnormalities, placenta insufficiency and&#160;intrauterine growth restriction, and to assess the fetal well-being in response to in utero insults including hypoxemia, maternal illness, and drug toxicity17,18. In parallel to its&#160;value in evaluating human defects and diseases, ultrasound assessment of fetal mice has gained increasing utility in experimental settings19,20,21,22,23. In particular, fetal heart ultrasound (echocardiography) allows sequential in vivo visualization of the developing heart. Many experimental studies have used ultrasound-imaging technology to observe fetal cardiovascular development in transgenic fetal mice. Doppler ultrasound has been particularly useful to elucidate the pathophysiological parameters, such as the flow patterns in fetal circulation under physiological challenges or disease conditions10,19. In both humans and animals, abnormal blood flow or oxygen supply to the fetus can result from various conditions that can disrupt fetal environment&#160;in utero&#160;and affect the fetoplacental axis, including placental&#160;abnormalities, maternal hypoxia, gestational diabetes, and pharmaceutically induced vascular constriction15,22. Therefore, establishing standardized methods for performing Doppler ultrasounds on fetal mice will tremendously empower future studies of CHDs by facilitating&#160;monitoring&#160;flow patterns and key hemodynamic indices of the cardiovascular circuits during different stages of cardiac development in genetic mouse models.
High frequency ultrasound has emerged as a powerful tool to measure the developmental&#160;and physiological parameters of the cardiovascular system in mouse models&#160;and human diseases18. This technology has been further refined in recent years. We and other researchers have demonstrated the feasibility of this system for conducting ultra-high frequency ultrasound studies on the fetal mouse heart15,19,20,21,22,23. The system is equipped with Doppler color flow mapping and linear array transducers that generate two-dimensional, dynamic images at high frequency (30 to 50 MHz) frame rates. These advantages, compared to low frequency ultrasound systems and the prior generation of high frequency ultrasound21,22, provide the necessary sensitivity and resolution for in-depth assessment of the fetal circulatory system, including comprehensive characterization of heart structures, chamber function, and flow indices of fetal mice in experimental settings. Herein, we outline methods to perform rapid assessment of cardiopulmonary circulation and feto-placental circulation at embryonic day E18.5 in vivo by using a high frequency&#160;system. We chose a 30/45 MHz transducer that provides an axial resolution of approximately 60 &#181;m and a lateral resolution of 150 &#181;m. However, a higher frequency transducer (40/50 MHz) can be chosen to analyze earlier developmental stages by following a similar methodological approach. The selected M-mode allows the visualization of tissues in motion at high temporal resolution levels (1,000 frames/s). Finally, we&#160;demonstrate the feasibility of high ultrasound for detailed comprehensive phenotypic characterization of fetal cardiovascular hemodynamic status and function in mice at baseline and in response to prenatal hypoxia stress.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="1606">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="40">
			<td height="40" style="height:40px;width:189px;">Vevo 2100&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;&#160;</td>
			<td style="width:291px;">VisualSonics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada</td>
			<td style="width:301px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:827px;">High Freequency Ultrasound Biomicroscopy. The set up is available in animal physiology core facility, division of molecular medicine, UCLA. USA</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="40">
			<td height="40" style="height:40px;">inbred mice (c57/BL6)&#160;&#160;</td>
			<td>Charles River Laboratories</td>
			<td>N/A</td>
			<td>Inbread wild type mouse strain</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

fetal mouse cardiovascular imaging using a high-frequency ultrasound (30/45mhz) system

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common cause of childhood morbidity and early mortality. Prenatal detection&#160;of the underlying molecular mechanisms of CHDs is&#160;crucial for inventing new preventive and therapeutic strategies. Mutant mouse models are powerful tools to discover new&#160;mechanisms&#160;and environmental stress modifiers that drive cardiac development and their potential&#160;alteration in CHDs. However, efforts to establish the causality of these putative contributors have been limited to histological&#160;and molecular studies&#160;in non-survival animal experiments, in which&#160;monitoring the key physiological and hemodynamic parameters is&#160;often absent. Live imaging technology has become an essential tool to establish the&#160;etiology of CHDs. In particular,&#160;ultrasound imaging can be used prenatally without surgically exposing the fetuses,&#160;allowing maintaining&#160;their baseline physiology while monitoring the impact of environmental stress&#160;on the hemodynamic and structural aspects of cardiac chamber development. Herein, we use the High-Frequency Ultrasound (30/45)&#160;system to examine the cardiovascular system in fetal mice at E18.5 in utero at the baseline and in response to prenatal hypoxia exposure. We demonstrate the feasibility of the system to measure cardiac chamber size, morphology, ventricular function, fetal heart rate, and umbilical artery flow indices, and their alterations in fetal mice exposed to systemic chronic hypoxia in utero in real time.

Statistical analyses of cardiac and hemodynamic indices were performed offline. The means of 5 consecutive measurements in 3 optimal images were calculated. The data were expressed as Mean &#177; SEM. Student&#39;s t-test was used to infer intergroup comparisons. A P value of &#8804;0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Following the above protocol, we characterized the impact of chronic exposure to pr...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound 30/45MHZ System at JoVE.com

Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound 30/45MHZ System

High-frequency ultrasound imaging of the fetal mouse has improved imaging resolution and can provide precise non-invasive characterization of cardiac development and structural defects. The protocol outlined herein is designed to perform real-time fetal mice echocardiography in vivo.

Fetal Mouse Cardiovascular Imaging Using a High-frequency Ultrasound (30/45MHZ) System

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common cause of childhood morbidity and early mortality. Prenatal detection&#160;of the underlying molecular ...

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