Dear all,
I would like to perform a transplantation of the abdominal aorta in rats and mice. Most papers describing these prodecures isolate the aorta from the point just below the branch of the renal artery until the bifurcation with the femoralis artery. Especially in the rat, the abdominal aorta still has some collaterals in between these two points, of which the iliolumbar artery is the most pronounced. Does anyone have experience with cauterizing these collaterals and what, if any, is the long-term effect of this cauterization? Since the native aorta will be replaced by non-rodent material, I do not believe it is feasible to ligate the collaterals and attach them back later.
Thank you for your help!
Dear Merle:
We have used this model and have either cauterized or ligated the side branches of the aorta and have seen no significant difference between the groups with regard to vessel wall architecture post transplant. It is important that you stay away of course from the main vessel and leave a little "bridge" as you cauterize the side branch but as long as you do this with a nice micro cautery device (bipolar) you should be perfectly fine. If you can let me know which cautery you use I can give you more specifics about the tip size etc. that we used. Hope this is helpful!
Best regards,
GB
Dear Gerald Brandacher,
Thank you very much for your reply. I have recently tried this method with success but some optimalization is still warrented. We are currently using the ERBE ICC 50 with a classic straight bipolar forceps 20195-019 (25W) and specially the right iliolumbar artery was easily cauterized with this device. However, for the left iliolumbar artery and vein we performed a ligation due to the diameter.
I am very interested in the devices you have previously.
Best wishes,
Merle Krebber
Dear Merle: I was always isolating the entire aorta to the bifurcation (save the sacral) when doing intestinal transplants in rats and mice. I did not use cautery but ligation - other colleagues use bipolar without problems. I got paraplegia in mice quite often but rats did very well all the time. There should be some kind of plexus for the immediate period, plus the branches to/from the muscles that may give collaterals within a couple of days. IMO reimplanting would just add operating time and a source of thrombosis. I will check what equipment we have.
Dear Mihai Oltean: Thank you very much for your reply. I am also very interested to hear what kind of equipment you use.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Anatomy
- Tissue