Intravital Fluorescence Microscopy Improves Thrombosis Phenotype Scoring in Mice

Abstract

Over the past 15 years, the laboratory mouse has yielded a wealth of information on the pathogenesis of thrombosis. To a large extent, the driving force behind the use of mice to study thrombosis has been the remarkable advances in molecular approaches to selectively modifying gene expression, thereby allowing analyses of the function of specific blood and vascular wall proteins in vivo. Although all murine blood vessels might be considered small, studies of thrombosis in mice have been categorized as macrovascular and microvascular. The former pertains to conductance arteries and large veins, such as the carotid artery, aorta, inferior vena cava, and jugular vein. Studies of these blood vessels are relevant to human diseases such as myocardial infarction, stroke, and deep venous thrombosis. Microvascular thrombosis models have involved analyses of arterioles (diameters approximately 30 to 100 μm) within vascular beds that can be exteriorized en bloc and imaged microscopically as thin sections, such as those of the cremaster muscle and mesentery.1,2 Microvascular studies are relevant to …