Operating Transverse Aortic Constriction with Absorbable Suture to Obtain Transient Myocardial Hypertrophy

Summary

This protocol presents an improved method to obtain transient myocardial hypertrophy with absorbable suture, simulating left ventricular hypertrophy decrease after removing pressure overload. It could be valuable for the studies on myocardial hypertrophic preconditioning.

Abstract

Based on twice transverse aortic constrictions (TACs) in mice, it is proved that myocardial hypertrophic preconditioning (MHP) could attenuate cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and slow down progression to heart failure. For novices, however, the MHP model is usually quite difficult to establish because of the technical obstacles in ventilator operation, opening the chest repeatedly, and bleeding caused by debanding. To facilitate this model, to increase the surgical success rate and to reduce the incidence of bleeding, we switched to absorbable sutures for the first TAC combing with a ventilator-free technique. Using a 2-week absorbable suture, we demonstrated that this procedure could cause significant myocardial hypertrophy in 2 weeks; and 4 weeks after surgery, myocardial hypertrophy was almost completely regressed to the baseline. Using this protocol, the operators could master the MHP model easily with a lower operation mortality.

Introduction

Ischemic preconditioning is a phenomenon that induces brief non-lethal episodes of ischemia and reperfusion to the heart and has the capacity to dramatically reduce myocardial injury¹. Given the obvious clinical implications of ischemic preconditioning, such as limiting myocardial infarct size² and suppressing ventricular tachyarrhythmias after myocardial revascularization³, there have been lots of research to dissect the mechanisms underlying cardio-protective effects induced by preconditioning^4,5. In contrast, other non-ischemic types of....

Protocol

All procedures were carried out following the guidelines of the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH Publication No. 85-23, revised in 1996). C57BL/6J male mice (8–10 weeks, 20–25 g) were provided by the Animal Center of South Medical University.

1. Preoperative preparation

1. Pinch off the tip of a 25 G needle with a needle holder and blunt it with a hard object like the holder.
2. Pass a 5–0 absorbable suture through the needle and then curve it to 90° with a holder¹³.
   NOTE: According to different research pu....

Results

In this study, we randomly divided 45 mice into three groups, the sham, the silk suture group, and the absorbable suture group (the number of each group on D0 (baseline), D14, and D28 after TAC was 15, 10, and 5, respectively). On D7, D14, D21, and D28 after the surgery, the constricted peak velocity was determined by echocardiography. We found that the blood flow velocity at the constriction was still greater than 3,000 mm/s in the second week after TAC even though an absorbable suture had been used to constrict the aor.......

Discussion

There is still a vastly underexplored area in cardiac non-ischemic preconditioning. Based on our previous studies, we switched to using absorbable sutures to improve the myocardial hypertrophic preconditioning model.

In previous reports, many investigators used silk suture to constrict the aortic arch^8,14,15. Silk suture was easily available and was often used for surgical wound suture, tissue ligatio.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Absorbable suture (5-0)	Shandong Kang Lida Medical Products Co., Ltd	5-0	Ligation
Animal ultrasound system VEVO2100	Visual Sonic	VEVO2100	Echocardiography
Cold light illuminator	Olympus	ILD-2	Light
Heat pad- thermostatic surgical system (ALC-HTP-S1)	SHANGHAI ALCOTT BIOTECH CO	ALC-HTP-S1	Heating
Isoflurane	RWD life science	R510-22	Inhalant anaesthesia
Matrx VIP 3000 Isofurane Vaporizer	Midmark Corporation	VIP 3000	Anesthetization
Medical nylon suture (5-0)	Ningbo Medical Needle Co.	5-0	Close the skin
Pentobarbital sodium salt	Merck	25MG	Anesthetization
Precision electronic balance	Denver Instrument	TB-114	Weighing sensor
Self-made spacer			25-gauge needle
Silk suture (5-0)	Yangzhou Yuankang Medical Devices Co., Ltd.	5-0	Ligation
Small animal microsurgery equipment	Napox	MA-65	Surgical instruments
Transmission Gel	Guang Gong pai	250ML	Echocardiography
Veet hair removal cream	Reckitt Benchiser	RQ/B 33 Type 2	Remove hair of mice
Vertical automatic electrothermal pressure steam sterilizer	Hefei Huatai Medical Equipment Co.	LX-B50L	Auto clean the surgical instruments