Model mk 2000

The investigation conforms to the Position of the American Heart Association on Research Animal Use adopted by the American Heart Association on November 11, 1984. All in vivo and in vitro experimental protocols were conducted under the supervision of the Animal Research Committee of Osaka University and in accordance with the Guidelines for Animal Experiments of Osaka University and the Japanese Animal Protection and Management Law.
The 10- to 12-week-old male C57BL/6J mice were subjected to transverse aortic constriction (TAC) surgery (10) (link). Sham-operated animals underwent the same operation without aortic constriction. Blood pressure was measured noninvasively on mice anesthetized with 2.5% tribromoethanol by using a pressure monitor (Model MK-2000, Muromachi Kikai Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan). The pressure gradient across TAC was estimated by the difference in blood pressure between both arms by using a pressure monitor. Ultrasonography (Sonos 5500, equipped with a 15-MHz linear probe, Philips Medical Systems, Cambridge, Massachusetts) was used for assessing left ventricular (LV) size and function on conscious mice.

Blood pressure was measured by tail-cuff plethysmography (Model MK-2000; Muromachi Kikai Co. Ltd, Tokyo, Japan). To reduce the possibility of stress artifacts, we measured blood pressure 15 min after placing rats in the equipment. The average of 10 measurements was adopted as the value of blood pressure. Blood pressure measurement was performed at 10, 12, and 14 weeks of age.

Systolic blood pressure was measured by a tail-cuff method using a blood pressure monitor (Model MK-2000, Muromachi Kikai Co., Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan) one week before the experimental date of vasodilation studies, as described previously [45 (link)]. The systolic blood pressure values were derived from an average of at least five measurements per animal at each time point.
Before collecting tissues from animals for experiments, body weight, body length and waist length were measured under anesthesia (sodium pentobarbital, 80 mg/kg, i.p.), and then blood was drawn from the abdominal aortas of non-fasting rats. The serum was separated by centrifugation at 1000× g for 10 min at 4 °C. Serum levels of triglyceride, glucose, insulin, and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), as an index of oxidative stress, were determined using commercial kits; the triglyceride E-test (Wako Pure Chemical Ind. Ltd., Osaka, Osaka, Japan), glucose CII-test (Wako Pure Chemical), the rat insulin detection kit (Morinaga Biochemistry Lab., Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan), and TBARS Assay Kit (Cayman Chemical Co., Ann Arbor, MI, USA).