Submitted on September 2, 2009
Revised on October 1, 2009
Accepted on October 5, 2009
Refined Approach for Quantification of In Vivo Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury in the Mouse Heart
Steffen Bohl1*, Debra J Medway2, Jeanette Schulz-Menger3, Jürgen E Schneider4, Stefan Neubauer5, and Craig A Lygate5
1 British Heart Foundation Experimental MR Unit, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford
2 The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford
3 Franz Volhard Clinic
4 Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics
5 University of Oxford
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sbohl{at}well.ox.ac.uk.
Cardiac ischemia/reperfusion experiments in the mouse are important in vivo models of human disease. Infarct size is a particularly important scientific read-out as virtually all cardio-circulatory pathways are affected by it. Therefore, such measurements must be exact and valid. The histological analysis however remains technically challenging and the resulting quality is often unsatisfactory. For this report we have scrutinized each step involved in standard double-staining histology. We have tested published approaches and challenged their practicality. As a result, we propose an improved and streamlined protocol, which consistently yields high-quality histology, thereby minimizing experimental noise and group sizes.
